As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.

When Olive makes up a story about a trip to Paris to impress her New York pen pal Molly, the lies quickly get out of hand, and threaten their long distance friendship.

After a string of incredibly good luck, Molly decides that she has developed magical powers--but when she finds out that her pen pal Olive has had an equally surprising run of minor disasters Molly starts to wonder if her magical good luck is somehow responsible for her friend's problems.

Pen pals Molly and Olive consider themselves best friends even though they have never actually met because Molly lives in New York City and Olive lives on a farm in Iowa--but when Olive finds a diamond bracelet in the grass the two girls start to wonder if they can finally get the money for one of them to visit the other.