When Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Ann, lose their jobs to the gasoline, electric, and diesel motor shovels, they go to a little country town where they find that one new job leads to another.

A country house is unhappy when the city, with all its buildings and traffic, grows up around her.

A naughty little boy, sent to bed without his supper, sails to the land of the wild things where he becomes their king.

"A toy bear in a department store wants a number of things, but when a little girl finally buys him he finds what he has always wanted most of all."

Alexander could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. He went to sleep with gum in his mouth and woke up with gum in his hair. When he got out of bed, he tripped over his skateboard and by mistake dropped his sweater in the sink while the water was running. He could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Nothing at all was right. Everything...

The kids in Room 207 take advantage of their teacher's good nature until she disappears and they are faced with a vile substitute.

Brief text and illustrations trace the journey of a colorful train as it goes through tunnels, by cities, and over trestles.

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.