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After Sephardic Jewish fifth-grader Ava and her Muslim cousin Nadeem are called hateful names at school, Ava's Granny Buena rummages in her closet and pulls out a glittering crystal button box. It's packed with buttons that generations of Ava's Sephardic ancestors have cherished for hundreds of years. With the help of Granny's mysterious cat Sheba, Ava and Nadeem make an exciting discovery: if they sew a button from the Button Box onto their clothes, it will take them back to the time and place of the ancestor who wore it! The friends find themselves in ancient Morocco, where a Muslim prince, Abdur Rahman, is fleeing for his life. Can Ava, Nadeem, and their ancestor-- a fierce young Jewish girl named Ester--help the prince escape to Spain and fulfill his destiny, creating a legendary Golden Age of peace? Or will Ava and Nadeem mess this up, and stay stuck in the distant past forever? 

The past holds lessons for Ava and Nadeem that help them face their own problems in the present--from bullies, to babysitting gone wrong, to the worst family vacation ever. 

Each book in the Button Box series is a new adventure, grounded in real history, with back matter to encourage more learning. From the year 859, when a Muslim princess and her sister founded the first university in the world, to 1654 when the first Jewish settlers arrived to help build New York, the friends explore the rich shared history of Jewish and Muslim peoples and the significance of their achievements around the globe. Nadeem and Ava's adventures also reveal how folk who choose many different ways of looking at the world can live and work peacefully--together. 

In today's social environment of growing cultural mistrust and increased violence against Muslims and Jews, it's vital to bring these stories to the hearts and minds of children everywhere.