Fitting in can be hard, especially when you're as small as Ember, a tiny boy living alone in a city of giants.

But Ember's luck changes when he meets Lua, a kindly sea turtle, who escorts him across the ocean to a school for little creatures on a wondrous island. -Here, Ember learns that first days can be hard, too--especially when they involve bizarre, fantastical cave-dwellers, ferocious storms, and classmates that, from the very start, aren't at all interested in making friends.

As he struggles to adapt to this new world, Ember finds himself at the heart of an otherworldly mystery, facing a strange monster from the deep that threatens everything he holds dear. On the surface, Ember's classmates may seem of little help, but any good student of nature knows appearances can be deceiving--and friendship can come from the most unexpected of places.