Elric and his mother secretly care for his mentally disabled sister, Wynn, whom the villagers consider a changeling, until their father threatens to sell her, so they flee into the forest, even though Elric does not share her belief in magic.

Growing up in Saitter, Louisiana, in the 1950s, twelve-year-old Tiger Ann struggles with her feelings about her stern, but loving grandmother, her mentally slow parents, and her good friend and neighbor, Jesse.

Katy, the precocious ten-year-old daughter of the town doctor, befriends a retarded boy.