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 leuke…