Between school and Al-Anon meetings, Jenna helps Mrs. Gladstone cope with escalating problems that result from the merger of Gladstone Shoes with Shoe Warehouse Corporation, while managing a new employee with a shoplifting record.
Alice fills the summer before her junior year of high school with a job at the mall, hanging out with her friends, and wishing she had a bigger family.
A father and son wander into a magic shop in London and are amazed by what they see; but soon things become more and more curious until the father is no longer sure where reality ends and illusion begins.
When a boy and his aunt find that a bigot has written something on the sidewalk outside the candy shop owned by a new immigrant from Taiwan, they set out to comfort the owner.
When nine-year-old Luvella fears that she and her family may be forced to leave their early twentieth century Pennsylvania logging town, she struggles doggedly to achieve the dream she thinks will save them.
While her Uncle Ted is off fighting in World War II, Lee watches the candy gradually disappear from the shelves of her family's store and realizes that her entire world has changed.
