Under a new government program based on the saying "It takes a village to raise a child," the Baudelaire orphans are adopted by an entire town, with disastrous results.

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

Emmy, who is nervous about moving to the big city from the country because she loves riding horses, meets Belle, an American Quarter Horse, at a park stable near her new home, which helps her to feel better.

Johannes is a free dog, a fast dog--such a fast dog! He lives in an urban park by the sea, and every day, he runs through the park, seeing all, missing nothing, and reporting what he sees to the park's three ancient Bison, the Keepers of the Equilibrium. But the Equilibrium has been disrupted. Mysterious rectangles are hypnotizing Johannes, the humans are erecting a mysterious new building, and an entirely new kind of animal has arrived in the park--and...

Ted Hammond, the only sixth grader in his small Nebraska town's one-room schoolhouse, searches for clues to the disappearance of a homeless family.