"A small sampling of the many symbols, charms, expressions, and behaviors that have a story behind them." Included are an alphabetic "encyclopedia of well-known and lesser-known superstitions, symbols, talismans and charms"--Cover.
Examines the origins, persistence, and bases, if any, for superstitions concerning sports, medicine, weather, music, theater, marriage, and other areas.
While staying with distant relatives in England, Americans Rowan, Meg, Silly, and James Morgan, with their neighbors Dickie Rhys and Finn Fachan, learn that one of them must fight to the death in the Midsummer War required by the local fairies.
In seventeenth-century Yorkshire, Lucy's younger sister Sarah is suspected by many to be a changeling, a fairy child substituted by the fairies for a human child.
Superstitious before being diagnosed with leukemia, high school senior Mia becomes irrationally dependent on horoscopes, good luck charms, and the like when her life shifts from cheerleading and parties to chemotherapy and platelets, while her parents obsess and lifelong friend Gyver worries.
Roscoe is determined to guess the weight of a giant pumpkin in order to win books for his school library and candy for himself, but is overwhelmed by superstitions, especially about a certain black kitten.
