In parallel stories, Bone, an orphaned dog, finds and loses a series of homes, Molly, a family pet, helps Charlie through the grief and other after-effects of his brother's death, and lonely Henry pleads for a dog of his own.

Xena and Xander Holmes, an American brother and sister living in London for a year, discover that Sherlock Holmes was their great-great-great grandfather when they are inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Famous Detectives and given his unsolved casebook, from which they attempt to solve the case of a famous missing painting.

While running a spy network from their elementary school, five unpopular misfits combine their abilities and use cutting-edge gadgetry to fight evil around the world.

Angry with his mother for having too little time for him, eleven-year-old Felix takes advantage of an opportunity to become bat boy for a minor league baseball team, hoping to someday be like his father, a famous Cuban outfielder. Includes glossaries of baseball terms and Spanish words and phrases.

Fourth-grader Ophelia Peeler has always felt that she was just like Dorothy in Oz, skipping down the yellow brick road, until a move to Oregon, away from her best friend, sends her on a different path.

When lights start flickering and temperatures suddenly drop, twelve-year-old Tessa Woodward, sensing her new house may be haunted, recruits some new friends to help her unravel the mystery of who or what is trying to communicate with her and why.

When her mother and younger sister are killed in a house fire, eleven-year-old Cara struggles to find a way to deal with her emotions and to reach out to her grieving father.

After the mysterious disappearance of their parents, Marty and Grace go to live with their scientist uncle and accompany him on, what soon becomes, an increasingly dangerous expedition to New Zealand to track a giant squid.

Eleven-year-old Kristine, still struggling to come to terms with the death of her beloved horse, finds it difficult to accept the new dog she receives for her birthday.