As if she didn't have trouble enough after her classmates discovered she had worn her brother's underwear to school (oh, the teasing, the humiliation!) Jennifer Murdley has just stumbled into Mr. Elives' Magic Shop, where she buys a toad named Bufo. Of course, the odds of buying a normal toad in that shop are zero, as Jennifer finds out when Bufo starts to talk to her. As it turns out, talking is the least of the toad's strange talents. Before Jennifer's adventures with him are over, she will have to mend an ancient tragedy, save her little brother from being a toad himself, and (hardest of all) come face to face with the face that in a world obsessed with beauty, she is anything but. At least, not on the outside...