The world, itself, seems to bring together Henry, whose best friend died near their home in the mountains of Vermont, and Zavion, who lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, so that the boys can help each other heal.

When feisty twelve-year-old Rebel McKenzie, an aspiring paleontologist, goes to spend the summer taking care of her older sister's seven-year-old son at the mobile home park in Frog Level, Virginia, she never expects to enter a beauty pageant or meet a hand model.