Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Sumac Lottery is the fifth of seven kids in her large, unruly family. With four parents and a menagerie of pets, they live and learn together in a sprawling Victorian house they call Camelottery. Then a grandfather they've never met who suffers from dementia comes to live with them. But "Grumps" is worse than tough to get along with! He has to go - but can Sumac help find a home where he belongs? -- Provided by publisher.