The week of her tenth birthday, Alice and her parents go to Sanibel Island, Florida, just as they do every year, but this time some of the people who are always there are missing and some new people have come, which unsettles Alice, who wants things to be exactly the same as they always are.

"Fiona may have problems, but she's no damsel in distress. She'd rather be the one wielding the wand in the story: she wants to be the fairy godperson. So when her mom sends her off to stay with relatives in a place called Cold Hope for the summer, Fiona decides it's time to start training for the role. And wow, do these people need help! Aunt Becky's bakery is failing, Great-Uncle Timothy draws but never speaks, and Great-Aunt Alta is the gloomiest,...

In the twenty-second century, a sun shift has made it impossible for mammals to survive in the daylight, and ten-year-old Elvie and her caretaker, Flora, are studying the migration route of monarch butterflies along what used to be the western coast of the United States, hoping that something in the butterflies wing scales can be used to protect people from the sun and save humanity from extinction.

Hoping that the arrival of Freedom Riders in her town will help her community shed its antiquated views, thirteen-year-old Billie is forced to confront her own mindset when things turn tragic. "Personally I don't mind them coming here but they might bother some of my customers. Thirteen-year old Billie Sims has heard things like this all her life, from the grocer down the road, from her neighbors at church, from her parents. But Billie never understood...