Jennifer Murdley, a homely fifth-grader who would give anything to be beautiful, accidentally stumbles into a magic shop and purchases a very ugly toad. The toad, it turns out, can talk and ends up getting Jennifer into the worst trouble of her life. This madcap, head-spinning adventure is also a thought-provoking story about the nature of true beauty.

Sixth-grader Jeremy Thatcher discovers a strange magic shop he has never seen before. He enters, and his life is changed forever. Buying what he thinks is a marble, he discovers he has really purchased a dragon's egg.

Step inside Mr. Elives' magic shop, where the shelves are stocked with strange and mysterious goods. The children in these five books each leave the shop with magical items intended especially for them. In The Monster's Ring, Russell Crannaker, bullied all his life, gets a chance to fight back when he is given a monstrous magical item. In Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, a boy receives a small marbled dragon's egg--and when it hatches, his wildest dreams take wing. In Jennifer Murdley's Toad, a girl "in a plain brown wrapper," buys a talking toad who knows a thing or...