Book excerpt: Enrique Salazar and Connie Ejeekwa seem like normal sixth-graders. They attend a regular public school, with the usual assortment of friends and bullies. But the two friends share a secret. They are members of Magic User families, which have been entrusted for generations to help the Earth's endangered species without anybody else discovering their special role. These unusual "totem mages" embody the spirit of whatever animal they are born to represent and protect. Connie's totem animal is the mountain lion, and Enrique's is the common turkey vulture, which is not actually endangered -- yet. When Connie's father, a leader in the Magic User community, is kidnapped by an evil witchdoctor, the two budding totem mages set out to rescue him, and possibly the entire planet. Their journey begins with a dreadlocked, high-spirited, taxi-driving witch who can be instantly summoned -- at great risk -- to provide a wild ride through a magical world at war. Connie and Enrique will have to be brave and extremely clever if they hope to survive vicious attacks from the witchdoctor's powerful gang members and the various monsters lurking in the dark corners of this supernatural world. It doesn't help that the only two weapons they possess are Connie's oversized, all-seeing glasses and Enrique's magically malfunctioning flip-flops. Even worse, both are on the verge of an abrupt and mysterious preteen mental and physical change that the adult totem mages call going MAD...