Eleven-year-old Tilly Pages, who has found comfort in her grandparents' bookshop since her mother's disappearance, now learns that she can bookwander into any stories, and decides to seek her mother.

William Wyatt Orser's life is turned upside down after his mother has a stroke, but the socially awkward, word-loving twelve-year-old finds glimmers of hope when he discovers friends who share his love of wordplay and books.