The Sesstry family roots trace to Laverne Fox McElmurry, a man born enslaved 
in 1829 and freed after the Civil War. Annie, his twenty-first descendant, is a 
bright and sassy thirteen-year-old from an upper-middle-class family, anxious 
to spread her wings. Annie’s mother, a writer, and her father, a history professor 
and curator at the Smithsonian Institution, spend weekends exploring historical 
and cultural points of interest with their children.

 Annie hates everything about bygone times, but her parents insist understanding 
history is essential to understanding who we are and where we come from. One 
summer day, Annie, her sister Emma, and her cousin Joshua unexpectedly slip 
through a time portal and travel back to post-Civil War Georgia. They meet 
Fox and discover a secret about family time travelers through the generations; 
learning history isn’t so dull after all.