Arriving in San Francisco from Ireland, Shannon meets a young Chinese girl, Mi Ling, and notices that Mi Ling is terribly afraid of something, but when Shannon discovers what it is, she quickly finds herself involved her own grand adventure.

When Shannon and her friends conduct a book drive in their San Francisco neighborhood in 1880 to benefit the new library, they must solve a mystery quickly.

Shannon's new school is full of surprises, including a Suffragette teacher, but there's one big problem—her Chinese friend Mi Ling isn't allowed to attend.