Alder has always lived in his cozy little house in Southern California. An old, reliable, comforting walnut tree has stood between his house and the one next door. When a new family--with a particularly annoying girl his age named Oak--moves into the neighboring house, they cut the tree down. As Oak and Alder start school together, they can't imagine ever becoming friends. But they soon discover a series of mysterious, possibly magical, connections...

As far as twelve-year-old Odette Zyskowski is concerned, her parents have ruined her life by selling the house she and her younger brother have grown up in, getting an RV, and giving her some little mutt instead of the Labrador Retriever she wanted--but as they travel north to see her grandmother, Odette becomes aware of an even more frightening problem: her parents may be on the verge of a divorce.