"From the award-winning author of Root Magic comes the story of a girl forced to spend the summer with a great-grandmother she's never met--only to discover she runs a school for Southern conjure magic"-- Provided by publisher

With encouragement and Torah lessons from her great-granddaughter, Bubbie has a bat mitzvah.

A young boy listens to his great-grandmother's tales of Green Knowe as it used to be and, gradually, as past and present blend, he shares the strange adventures of the former inhabitants.

Seven-year-old Christine spends Christmas Eve helping her great-grandmother decorate her tree and sharing the story of a very special ornament that came from Rumania many years before.

Little Cliff is terrified of starting school, but with Mama Pearl's encouragement, he is able to overcome his fears.

When Naomi's absent mother resurfaces to claim her, Naomi runs away to Mexico with her great-grandmother and younger brother in search of her father.

When Angel's self-absorbed mother leaves her and her younger brother with their poor great-grandmother, the eleven-year-old girl worries not only about her mother and brother, her imprisoned father, the frail old woman, but also about a mysterious man who begins sharing with her the wonder of the stars.

When her mother goes to Florida in 1978, ten-year-old Sylvia stays behind in South Carolina, but when she fails to make new friends at school, she realizes that her newly-discovered great-grandmother and best friend, Miz Lula Maye, might be the problem.

Twenty miles from Oakland, California, where fires have led to racial tension, multi-racial fifteen-year-old Nina faces the bigotry of long-time friends, her parents' divorce, and her brother's misbehavior, while learning of her great-great grandmother Sarah's escape from slavery.