Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

E. L. Konigsburg revisits the town of Epiphany to tell the story of Margaret Rose Kane, Connor's older half-sister. It's about the summer when Margaret Rose turned twelve—the same year that Cabbage Patch dolls were popular, that Sally Ride became the first woman to go into space, that El Niño turned the world upside-down. Margaret Rose begins her summer with a miserable experience at camp; from which she's rescued by her beloved, eccentric...