Charlie is a twelve year old boy with three sisters and a brother with whom he gets along surprisingly well. Mature for his age, Charlie gets picked on in school and ridiculed because of his family's financial status. Everything embarrasses him: his body, his family, his clothes and his house with its weird, spooky bushes. All his life Charlie has wanted to "BE NORMAL". When his family decides, on the spur of the moment, to leave their rented house and travel to Alabama he realizes his chances at being normal are over. His parents purchase a houseboat, sight unseen, and it turns out to be a real Junker. The whole family works on restoring it, getting it livable in less than a week. They set out to sail anywhere and everywhere and somewhere along the way Charlie realizes that perhaps being normal isn't all its cracked up to be.

Klise tells an enlightening tale of self discovery and adolescence, of the importance of family and confidence. Portraying circumstances that young readers will be able to relate to, she gets her point across that just being yourself is all that matters. As the main character puts it, "...everything was possible. Anything could happen. Because [they] had been delivered from normal."