As an African-American boy and his white friend watch the construction of a house which will make them neighbors on the site of a Civil War battlefield, they agree that their homes are monuments to that war.
A boy and his father come from far away to visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington and find the name of the boy's grandfather, who was killed in the conflict.
As the months pass during first-grade teacher Mrs. Neal's pregnancy, her class gets involved writing letters to the baby, thinking up possible names for it, and designing a baby room on the bulletin board.