Anastasia, nearly eleven, is snatched from her elementary school and sent to live at a former insane asylum with two great-aunts she had never met after being told that her parents died in a tragic vacuum cleaner accident.

"When he realizes that his grandfather's stories of an enchanted circus are true, Micah Tuttle sets out to find the mysterious Circus Mirandus--and to use its magic to save his grandfather's life"--

"Libby and her great-aunt, Lobo, both learn the Pledge of Allegiance--Libby for school, and Lobo for her U.S. citizenship ceremony"--

"While staying with his weird great-aunt, Evan buys a mixture of monster blood at a funky old toy store. It's fun to play with at first. But then Evan notices something weird about the green slimy stuff -- it seems to be growing. And all that growing has given it a monstrous appetite ..." P. [4] of cover.

When his strict great-aunt promotes rules that threaten the neighborhood pigeons, Teddy may have to bend a few rules to save them, even if it means teaming up with his pesky little brother, also known as The Destructor.

Twelve-year-old Treasure Daniels and her younger sister must move in with Great-aunt Grace until their mother sorts herself out, but life in Black Lake, Virginia, where segregation lingers, is hard and Grace is a nightmare--at least on the surface.

"When Great Aunt Beauregard announces her intentions to bring budding engineer John into the family business of coffin manufacturing for the rest of his natural life--and, worse, to teach his sister Page to embalm--John decides enough is enough, and the two of them head out on the lam, maybe joining the circus"--

In England, newly pregnant seventeen-year-old Hattie and her gin-drinking great-aunt Gloria, who is in the early stages of dementia, set out together on a road trip of self-discovery--Gloria to finally confront the secrets of her past before they are wiped from her memory forever and Hattie to face the hard choices that will determine her future.

When three girls and their father visit for a week in the summer, it takes T́́ía Lola to make Miguel forget his unhappiness at the absence of any boys and embrace the adventures that ensue.

As a child Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.