"Mysti Murphy wishes she were a character in a book. If her life were fictional, she'd magically know how to deal with the fact that her best friend, Anibal Gomez, has abandoned her in favor of being a 'hipster.' She'd be able to take care of everyone when her dad has to spend time in the hospital. And she'd certainly be able to changer her family's secret: that her mother never leaves the house. Seventh grade is not turning out the way Mysti had...

Fourteen-year-old Alix is faced with a huge moral dilemma when she helps pull an illegal Iraqi immigrant from the incoming tide on the coastal English island where she lives.

From age six through her high school valedictory speech, believing she and her mother are wizards helps young Echo cope with poverty, hunger, her mother's drug abuse, and much more. Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side of Cleveland, where apartments are small and parents suffer addiction to the white rocks. Yet there is magic everywhere. Every day Echo travels between worlds, attending a rich white school on the West Side. But there are dangers...