House of the Red Fish

Tomi live in Hawaii during the WW2 bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan. He lives with his dad, mom, little sister, and grandfather. Once America becomes suspicious of any Japanese, things go bad in Tomi's world. His father is shot and failed. His father's work partner is killed. His grandfather is jailed. They lose their house.

To make due, Tomi's mom works for a wealthy man, cleaning the house. Tomi, his mom, and little sister live in a guest house on his mom's employer's property. Tomi and all other Japanese is chased by a young vigilante group. Tomi's dad's fishing boat is sunk based on suspicious of it being used to assist the enemy.

Tomi has a white friend Billy. Their family is not prejudice against Japanese. Together they make plans and enlist help to lift his dad's sunken boat. Tomi's grandfather has a stroke, and is let out of jail under care of Billy's mom, who happens to be a nurse who works at the hospital.

Tomi's dad gets a girlfriend who does tattoos for $15 each. Tomi plans to use air in tire tubes to float the boat up from the water. He also dives down with friends to pull heavy pieces off the boat. Eventually he gets the grand idea to use two huge pontoons to help lift the boat.

The son of Tomi's mom's employer is part of the vigilante group. He continues to come after Tomi. He steals Tomi's prized family sword, which Tomi had hidden. When this evil son brings some thugs to stop the boat operation, they encounter people they know on Tomi's team. Eventually Tomi calls out the bully, and beats him on a 1-vs-1 fight. The thugs back down.

Some MPs come. Tomi provides a cover story that his dad's boat sunk. And he is trying to raise it back up. Another aside is that they find the key to the truck of Tomi's dad's partner who was killed. They sell the truck for cash and give the money to his widow.

Jacob Have I Loved

Sara Louise, nicknamed Wheezie, lives on an island with her mom, dad, grandma, and twin sister. Her dad is a fisherman of sorts. He works a lot, going out to get crabs and other seafood. Louise would like to accompany him. But they don't let females on the island do that type of work. Instead, she uses a small boat with her friend Call. They also go out searching for seafood to sell. She gives all her proceeds to her parents.

Louise's sister Caroline is the golden child. She is pretty and sings very well. Initially Louise and Call try to investigate whether a captain who recently returned to the island is a spy. They befriend the man. Caroline also joins them when they visit the captain. The captain somehow cajoles Louise and Call to help repair his house. Louise tries to return a stray cat to Miss Trudy, who she finds unresponsive. Trudy is sent to the mainland for medical help. The captain, Louise, and Call then try to clean up Trudy's house.

Call is a loner. He is also fat. As we are in a war, he heads off and becomes a man at war. Meanwhile, Trudy and the captain marry. However Trudy is sick and dies. She leaves a considerable amount of wealth to the captain. The captain then uses his money to fund Caroline's musical schooling abroad. When Call returns from the war, he has become a strapping man. He asks Caroline to marry him. This infuriates Louise. Just another case of where Caroline gets everything.

When the men were away for war, Caroline dropped out of school and was able to help her father with his seafood business. Eventually she complains to the captain and her mom how unfair life is for her. The captain encourages Louise to go live her dreams. That includes leaving the island to try to go to med school. In that time, women generally did not become doctors. So she became a nurse instead. She achieves another part of her dream by moving aboard to the mountains.

Louise meets Joseph in the mountains. He is surprised about her background, and wonders why she would come out to nowhere and live there. They eventually marry and have kids. 

A Wind in the Door

This book is the direct sequel to A Wrinkle in Time. Main character is Meg. Her little brother is Charles Wallace. He is bullied badly at school for being smart and weird. Their parents are doctors Murray. They meet Progo the Cherubim who Meg must pass a test with. Mr. Jenkins has some clones. Meg needs to discern the true principal, love him, and name him.

We also meet Blajeny the teacher. He is the one who set out the tests. He does not seem to be a main character. The enemy the Echthoi want to X everyone I think that means murder. Meg meets Sporos the faradolae. She need to convince him to join them in healing Charles and fighting the Echthoi. 

There are a number of other characters such as Calvin, who is Meg's boyfriend. There is also Louise the snake, he we find out is also a teacher. In the end, Progo gets X'd by the bad guys. But Charles is saved. The majority of the story was Meg learning to kythe (communicate telepathically) with assorted people. There were also other faradolae to convince and rally.