In this novel that unites characters from "The Giver" and "Gathering Blue," Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.

Mrs. Pidgeon's second grade class studies poetry and her students write haiku, couplets, free verse, and finally, a tribute to Mrs. Pidgeon's mother organized by the irrepressible Gooney Bird Greene.

When a bored Princess Patricia Priscilla makes her chambermaid switch identities with her so she can attend the village school, her attitude changes and she plans a new way to celebrate her sixteenth birthday.