This book is both historical and relevant: it deals with homelessness, set in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression. The stock market crashed a year before, and many people are suffering hard times, but Frances Elizabeth Barrow lives comfortably with her businessman father in a large house with four servants. She studies with a governess every day, and her father sets down the rules that a Barrow is supposed to live by. But one night, a little before midnight, Mr. Barrow breaks every rule that Frances knows about --- he kills himself. That's when Frances learns that her father could no longer keep his business running, and he had gone bankrupt.

A banker comes to tell Frances that her father's sister, Aunt Bushnell, her only living relative, has agreed to take her in. He tells her that she must pack up only her personal stuff to take with her, because the bank owns everything else. The servants, her only true friends in the house, must leave by the end of the week.

Frances decides that she doesn't want to go to Aunt Bushnell. Her best friend among the servants, the gardener, Junius, says that he's going to become a hobo, just jump a train and go where it takes him. To Frances, this sounds exciting and free. Junius tries to explain that it's not a thing for little girls to do. She should be glad that she has her Aunt Bushnell's home, as the servants would jump at a chance to live in such a fancy house.

But Frances is determined. If girls can't become hoboes, she decides, then she'll dress up like a boy. She changes her name to Frankie Blue, and hots the rails, meeting up with other hoboes, like Stewpot, Blink, and Peg-Leg Al. Along the way, Frances discovers that, amazingly, girls do ride the rails just like men and boys do. She meets Vera and Dot and Plain Jane.

As Frankie Blue, in fact, Frances learns many things. Hoboing is not the lark she thought it would be, and being totally free and sleeping under the stars is not as romantic as it sounds. Homes are good things, and rootlessness is only for those truly destitute people who have nowhere to call home.

Can Frankie Blue change back to Frances and go live with Aunt Bushnell? Or will Frances learn a final, terrible lesson about the grim realities of homelessness?

   --- Reviewed by Tamara Penny