When Rebecca helps her injured neighbor, Mr. Rossi, by caring for his pigeons, she discovers a strange black pigeon with an eerie message warning Mr. Rossi of danger, and consults a fortune teller to learn if she is in danger, as well.

Rebecca Rubin worries that her tenth birthday will be ruined because it falls during Passover, but her mother's cousin Max, an actor, takes her with him to a movie studio, where she makes friends with an actress and a set carpenter.

While Rebecca Rubin helps her building's ailing superintendent take care of his homing pigeons, she puzzles over what to do with the Christmas centerpiece her teacher insisted she make but which has no place in her Jewish home.

In these six stories from the uplifting American Girl series, a young girl living in 1914 New York learns what it's like to grow up in the big city. Rebecca Rubin has big dreams of becoming an actress, but her parents don't think girls are cut out for performing. As Rebecca searches for alternatives, she finds new ways to fulfill dreams that she never thought possible.