With her parents lost at sea, eleven-year-old Anna finds comfort in a tree with magical properties which suddenly becomes home to some amazing creatures who may need her help.
Everything Newton draws with his magic red crayon becomes real, and heeding his mother's admonition he flies the airplane he draws right out the window.
A ten-year-old Lebanese boy goes to school, helps his mother with chores, plays with his friends, and lives with his family in a basement shelter when bombings occur and fighting begins on his street.
Ishaq, the son of the chief translator to the Caliph of ancient Baghdad, travels the world in search of precious books and manuscripts and brings them back to the great library known as the House of Wisdom.