Jess Aarons, a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia, finds a beloved and unexpected friend in Leslie, the new girl at school, with whom he creates a secret kingdom in the woods and from whom he learns lifelong lessons when tragedy strikes.
Finding herself in the latest and most intolerable of a string of foster homes, an eleven-year-old who prides herself on her cleverness and unmanageability tries gamely to provoke the adults around her.
When Angel's mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders meets a mysterious stranger who teaches her about the stars.