Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.

The Aldens participate in a three-day bicycle ride and soon find that someone seems to be intent on keeping others from completing the event.

The Alden children draw upon their resourcefulness to save the neighborhood firehouse from being torn down, while they also face a series of mysterious incidents connected with it.

Dear Reader, I hope, for your sake, that you have not chosen to read this book because you are in the mood for a pleasant experience. If this is the case, I advise you to put this book down instantaneously, because of all the books describing the unhappy lives of the Baudelaire orphans, The Miserable Mill might be the unhappiest yet. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are sent to Paltryville to work in a lumber mill, and they find disaster and misfortune...

When they help out at a guide dog training school, the Alden children meet several people who seem obsessed with a particular dog named Ginger.

At the same time that the Alden children's efforts to raise money for a new hospital wing are being sabotaged by nasty tricks, they find their attempts to befriend the new girl Beth frustrated by her strange behavior.

When a third grade classmate gets her picture in the paper for winning a spelling bee, Judy is determined to find a way to become famous herself.

Tired of the rules that have bound them ever since "the bad thing happened," twelve-year-old Diana ignores her brother's warnings and befriends the daughter of the new caretaker, setting in motion events that lead to the release of the spirit of an evil, crazy woman who once ruled the old Willis place.

When the dangerous ancient wizard Arkwright escapes the dungeon and goes missing within the Castle, Princess Celie must find the wizard and save her family.

A teen-age girl gains new insight into herself and her family when her mentally challenged brother gets lost.