Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

The story is about a married couple with children on the verge of divorce. Their imminent divorce, like many, is due to their mutual lack of respect and compassion for each other and the effect it has on their children. When the family makes a traumatic move to New Orleans they move into an old, Victorian home. There, in the attic, the children think they have found the "magic" to solve their parent's problems. The children accidentally manage to switch the souls of their parents. Now the wife must face the perils of the lockeroom and pressures as family breadwinner and the husband must face pregnancy and bond with his children. Newfound respect and appreciation is gained as the couple finally find out what it's like to walk in the other person's shoes.

Zenon Kar is 15 and lives on a space station which the military has taken over and is dismantling. She receives a mysterious signal and must convince everyone that it's from aliens who have come to help them.

A young widow still grieving over the death of her husband finds herself being comforted by a local housepainter.