Rochelle Parfitt is in trouble. When her father fell for "The Slut", her mother coped brilliantly, topping a perfect marriage with the perfect divorce. But now Mrs Parfitt has whisked Rochelle off to Melbourne, where neither of them knows anybody. Isolated and miserable, Rochelle starts to skip school and ends up secretly taking a job at the World Tree, an inner city bookshop that specialises in fairytales. When Gwen, the owner of the shop, encourages Rochelle to read the books she's selling, she finds herself using the fairytale collections as a guide to the adult world around her. For a while the World Tree feels like a refuge and then Rochelle's new life begins to fall apart. It's getting harder to keep her job secret, especially after 'The Slut' turns up at the bookshop. Rochelle must also come to terms with the fact that her mother is severely depressed. But the old tales and her new friends help Rochelle to face her problems - and, in the process, she discovers she has learnt how to tell her own stories.