When Julie gets a school detention for passing a note to Joy, a deaf student who has trouble understanding what their teacher is saying, she decides to run for student body president so she can make changes to the detention system.

Julie and her best friend, Ivy, find a baby owl in Golden Gate Park and take it to a wildlife rescue center where Julie meets Shasta and Sierra, two bald eagles that will be caged for life, unless money is raised to release them back into the wild.

It's 1976 with the entire country celebrating America's 200th birthday and Julie joins her cousins on a pioneer-style wagon train in honor of the Bicentennial.