Buddy Burger escapes his home planet, lands in Hollywood, and is cast in a new television series, but must pretend his six eyes and suction-cup feet are the costume and his human skin, real.

Eleven-year-old Rick Rusek, nearly homebound by motion sickness, wants to help his family's catering business by unsnarling Los Angeles traffic, but first he must help a Girl Scout troop with an art project.

"During the pilot year of a Los Angeles school system integration program, two sixth grade boys, one black, one white, become best friends as they learn to cope with everything from first crushes and playground politics to the loss of loved ones and racial prejudice in the 1970s"--