Nine-year-old Samantha Plum (Sammy), a city girl, journeys with her parents from San Francisco to Hawai'i, where she meets a wise old man with glittering eyes. He has a mysterious message for her, which she does not yet understand. In the Philippines, home of her ancestors, on the old family farm, she finds herself in a world filled with magic - a sky of a billion stars, a gecko that glows in the dark, a fish girl, a ball of light, fairies in a jar. But the family's happiness is threatened by an evil scheming cousin, in league with a vengeful earth spirit who appears out of nowhere, a bony white-bearded little man with long scrawny fingers as cold as ice. He plots to steal Sammy away, in a swirling cloud that his power can conjure up. Sammy, only a little girl, unsure of herself, must somehow learn to battle these dark forces. In peril, she finds that she is not alone. Good magic comes to her aid from another little girl, who can speak to her without words, a heroic presence from her family more than a hundred years ago, and a tiger shark who can carry messages thousands of miles to the wise old man in Hawai'i. And, most powerful of all, Sammy discovers a special gift in herself

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