When Maya's father goes bankrupt, Maya has to leave her beautiful home and live in a rundown house. She gets a taste of betrayal and shame as she experiences the fickleness of friends. One day, Maya is just in time to see her dad leave home with a suitcase. Maya wants the space in her mother's life to be left open for her father's return, so when her parents divorce, she feels that her father has divorced her too
Katie finds a four-leaf clover and instantly her perspective of the world changes--she'll have good luck forever: her dad will stop drinking and her mom will get out of her sickbed. Bursting to tell her mother the good news, she finds her dad waiting to tell her that her mother has died. Katie is left with an emotionally remote father to cope with grief on her own. Rummaging through a box of family photographs, she stumbles on her parents' well-kept secret and discovers that she has a family she never knew existed. Together, father and daughter embark on a search. But how does reality match up to Sophie's dreams of having an extended family? Children are often left to cope on their own with major challenges in life. Unable to find words to describe their emotions, they just get on with their lives--or do they? With this book, Pearl Silverstone hopes to help children and the adults cope better with life's unwanted surprises--together.