Stuart Little, a mouse born into a human family in New York, sets off to find his friend Margalo, a bird who fled after hearing a cat plotting to eat her.

Ten-year-old Bud Caldwell, an orphan in 1936 Michigan, finds jazz bandleader Herman E.

Drifter Frank Chambers and Cora Papadakis murder Cora’s husband Nick and escape conviction through a lawyer’s trick.

Jimmy Marcus, believing his childhood friend Dave Boyle murdered his daughter Katie, kills Dave by the river.

Roz, a robot who washed ashore on a wild island and learned to survive by raising an orphaned gosling named Brightbill, is badly damaged when the RECO robots come to take her back.

Fourteen-year-old Jacob Barber’s murder trial collapses when another man confesses and dies.

Ivan, a silverback gorilla who has lived for twenty-seven years in a cage at a shopping-mall circus, keeps his promise to the dying elephant Stella to rescue the baby elephant Ruby.

A mysterious “Pulse” sent through cell phones turns users into mindless “phoners.” Artist Clay Riddell finds his son Johnny, who was partly affected, and in the final scene he puts a phone to Johnny’s ear, hoping a second pulse will reset his mind; the book ends before we learn if it works.

Edward Tulane, a proud china rabbit who once loved only himself, is lost at sea and passed through many hands, learning to love and grieve.

Despereaux Tilling, a small mouse in love with Princess Pea, goes down into the castle dungeon to rescue her from the rat Roscuro and the servant girl Miggery Sow.