Yellow Jack is appropriate for young adult through adult audiences. We follow three families from Odessia, Russia to some place outside Newport, Arkansas. They leave their native city in 1882 to go to New York City. There they earn money to make the trip to Arkansas to meet fellow commune members who have already settled in the area. Without farming experience and because of the floodplain they chose, they cannot farm as they expected. They struggle to overcome poverty, yellow fever, and malaria. Finally, the leader, Moyshe Herder, accepts that they must end their dream of farming.