When her father enters the hospital to have open-heart surgery, ten-year-old Emma is sent to Peconic Bay to live with her tormented aunt and finds the experience painful until she meets a friend who suggests making a miniature village in the sand.
Twelve-year-old Elizabeth resents being sent to stay on a small Maine island after the arrival of her new baby brother, but the time she spends with her artist grandmother and an unusual young neighbor help her to see things differently.