Like many of us, Maggie is navigating her path through a complex world-except, her world is the stream.

Having lost her home to changes in the current, Maggie, a mayfly, is searching the stream for the richest of foods with which to nourish her brief flight in the world of air. But the stream, with its ever-changing currents, seems a confusing array of possibilities. Where are the richest of foods? How might she find them? And what are the qualities that makes one's forage truly rich?

As Maggie travels the stream, she meets other streamlings-some malevolent, some benign-who offer her advice based on their own experiences within the stream. Through these meetings-from a midge who seeks to understand the stream by classifying the minute grains of the streambed to a water scorpion who tells Maggie her only value is as fish food-Maggie, unsure of herself, must define her own vision or risk missing the fulfillment that she seeks.