Ixabepilone in Treating Young Patients With Solid Tumors or Leukemia That Haven't Responded to Therapy

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS: * Meets 1 of the following criteria: * Histologically confirmed solid tumor (closed to accrual as of 10/4/2007) that relapsed after or failed to respond to front-line curative therapy and for which no other potentially curative treatment options exist * Curative therapy may include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or any combination of these modalities * Eligible tumor types include, but are not limited to, the following: * Rhabdomyosarcoma * Other soft tissue sarcomas * Ewing's sarcoma family of tumors * Osteosarcoma * Neuroblastoma * Wilms' tumor * Hepatic tumors * Germ cell tumors * Primary brain tumors * Histologic confirmation may be waived for brain stem or optic glioma * Diagnosis of relapsed or refractory leukemia * Patients with refractory or second or greater relapsed leukemia must have \> 25% blasts in the bone marrow (M3 bone marrow) with or without active extramedullary disease (except for leptomeningeal disease) * Relapsed after or failed to respond to frontline curative therapy and no other potentially curative therapy (e.g., radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or any combination of these modalities) exists * Patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia must be refractory to treatment with retinoic acid and arsenic trioxide * Patients with Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic myelogenous leukemia must be refractory to imatinib * No active CNS leukemia (CNS3) PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS: Age: * 2 to 18 (solid tumor patients \[closed to accrual as of 10/4/2007\]) * 1 to 21 (leukemia patients) Performance status: * For patients age 11 to 21: * Karnofsky 50-100% * For patients age 1 to 10: * Lansky 50-100% Life expectancy: * Not specified Hematopoietic: * Platelet count at least 100,000/mm\^3 (20,000/mm\^3 for leukemia patients) * Hemoglobin ≥ 8.0 g/dL Hepatic: * Bilirubin less than 1.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN) * SGOT and SGPT less than 2.5 times ULN * No hepatic dysfunction that would preclude study Renal: * Creatinine normal for age OR * Creatinine clearance at least 60 mL/min * No renal dysfunction that would preclude study Other: * No known severe prior hypersensitivity reaction to agents containing Cremophor EL * No clinically significant unrelated systemic illness (e.g., serious infections or other organ dysfunction) that would preclude study * No grade 2 or greater preexisting sensory neuropathy * More than 2 month since prior and no concurrent evidence of graft vs host disease * Not pregnant or nursing * Negative pregnancy test * Fertile patients must use effective contraception PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY: Biologic therapy: * Recovered from all therapy-related acute toxic effects (leukemia patients only) * Prior epoetin alfa allowed * At least 3 days since other prior colony-stimulating factors (e.g., filgrastim (G-CSF), sargramostim (GM-CSF), or interleukin-11 (IL-11)) * At least 6 months since prior bone marrow transplantation * At least 2 months since prior stem cell transplantation or rescue (leukemia patients) * At least 7 days since prior therapy with a biological agent and hematopoietic growth factor with the exception of erythropoietin * More than 3 weeks since prior monoclonal antibody therapy (leukemia patients only) * No concurrent GM-CSF or IL-11 * No concurrent immunotherapy Chemotherapy: * See Disease Characteristics * Recovered from all therapy-related acute toxic effects (leukemia patients only) * At least 4 weeks since prior chemotherapy (6 weeks for nitrosoureas) * No other concurrent anticancer chemotherapy Endocrine therapy: * Concurrent corticosteroids allowed for the control of symptoms related to tumor-associated edema in patients with brain tumors * Patients with brain tumors must be on a stable or tapering dose of corticosteroids for 7 days before baseline scan is performed for the purpose of assessing response to study therapy * Must be on a stable or tapering dose of corticosteroids for 7 days prior to study entry (leukemia patients only) Radiotherapy: * See Disease Characteristics * Recovered from all therapy-related acute toxic effects (leukemia patients only) * At least 4 weeks since prior radiotherapy * More than 2 weeks since prior local palliative radiotherapy (leukemia patients only) * More than 3 months since prior total-body irradiation, craniospinal radiotherapy, or radiotherapy to ≥50% of the pelvis (leukemia patients only) * More than 6 weeks since prior other substantial bone marrow radiotherapy (leukemia patients only) * No prior extensive radiotherapy (e.g., craniospinal irradiation, total body irradiation, or radiotherapy to more than half of the pelvis) * No concurrent anticancer radiotherapy Surgery: * See Disease Characteristics Other: * Recovered from prior therapy * At least 30 days since any prior investigational anticancer therapy * At least 1 week since prior known inhibitors of CYP3A4, including any of the following: * Antibiotics (i.e., clarithromycin, erythromycin, or troleandomycin) * Anti-HIV agents (i.e, delaviridine, nelfinavir, amprenavir, ritonavir, idinavir, saquinavir, or lopinavir) * Anti-fungals (i.e., itraconazole, ketoconazole, fluconazole \[doses \> 3mg/kg/day\], or voriconazole) * Anti-depressants (i.e., nefaxodone or fluovoxamine) * Calcium channel blockers (i.e., verapamil or diltiazem) * Anti-emetics (i.e., aprepitant \[Emend®\]) * Miscellaneous agents (i.e., amiodarone) * Grapefruit juice * No other concurrent investigational agents * No concurrent St. John's Wort * No concurrent known inhibitors of CYP3A4, including grapefruit juice * Concurrent other agents inducing CYP3A4 allowed