Ten-year-old Zoe Elias, who longs to play the piano but must resign herself to learning the organ, instead, finds that her musicianship has a positive impact on her workaholic mother, her jittery father, and her school social life.

After a boy writing a story about a blob monster is electrocuted, he receives a typewriter which makes any sentence he writes a reality; after seeing a ghost playing the piano in his home, a boy is enrolled in piano lessons at a creepy school with an odd instructor; when a boy starts growing hair all over his body, his parents inform him that he is the result of a scientific experiment involving dogs.

Chronicles the life story of Ramzi Aburedwan, a Palestinian refugee who got an education, mastered the viola, and founded a music school in the West Bank, showing how his love of music helped to inspire children in a violent land.

Philosophy professor Dan Moller becomes inspired to teach himself to play Bach on the piano and along the way takes up such questions as: what is so special about Bach's music? What can Americans steeped in pop culture learn from European craftsmanship? And why do some people see a connection between Bach's music and God?