This satisfying story explores the powerful impact of our actions on the world around us. When his father takes a new job in Massachusetts, Ben Moroney must leave behind his best friend Tony, a western banded gecko named Lenny, and worst of all, the desert home he has loved and explored. Ben's adjustment to his new environment is not going well until he unexpectedly finds a kindred spirit in his eccentric fifth-grade science teacher, Mrs. Tibbets. Together they explore the varied habitats on her rural property, and she introduces him to the elusive and endangered Eastern spadefoot toads that make their home there. When Ben discovers that Mrs. Tibbets's relatives plan to sell the land to developers, he knows he must try to stop them. As Ben's obsession with saving the spadefoot toads' habitat grows, his schoolwork suffers and his relationships with his family and new friends are strained. One foolish, impulsive act threatens to destroy his friendship with Mrs. Tibbets—and maybe even her career. But just when it seems things can't get any worse, Ben finds a way to meet his responsibilities to the people around him and learns what it means to feel "at home."

When her mother dies, fifteen-year-old Mari and is desperate to avoid being caught up in the foster system. Again. And to complicate matters, she is now the only one who can take care of her super-smart and on-the-spectrum nine-year-old stepbrother, Conor. An unforgettable middle grade novel about two orphaned siblings on a cross-country journey in search of their place in the world.

Two recently orphaned siblings embark on an unforgettable cross-country road trip in search of their place in the world. When her mother dies, fifteen-year-old Mari is now the only one who can care for her super-smart and exasperating, on-the-spectrum younger brother Conor. Desperate to avoid being split up or put back into the "System," Mari decides to set out in the old family Honda sedan to find their estranged grandmother, the only person in the world who might take them in. Seizing upon Conor's obsession with the upcoming total eclipse of the sun, Mari convinces him to come along on a cross-country trajectory that will include a stop to view this spectacular event. As the two orphaned siblings journey from the snarls of LA traffic through the backroads of the Midwest and on toward their final destination in New England, Mari learns a lot about herself, about the world around them...and about their place in it. Bill Harley, seasoned storyteller that he is, makes you laugh at one moment and then hits you with soul-wrenching sorrow the next. His spot-on narrative takes you straight into Mari's head and heart, where you experience her deep yearning to belong, her bewilderment as she tries to negotiate the complicated highway of life, and her tentative steps toward loving and trusting the people around her.