When her father loses his job, seven-year-old Ramona Quimby thinks of ways to deal with the many problems that develop.

Nim loves her island home and the animals she shares it with, even while her scientist father is away doing research, but trouble is on the way and a new e-mail friend could be the only one who can help.

Amy ignores her sister Lou's attempt to get in touch with their estranged father, deciding she does not want him back in her life, but problems with a new horse help her to forget the past and face the future with hope.

Gillian Seagret doesn't listen to people who say her father's a crackpot. His conspiracy theories about the lost technology of Cold War-era rocket scientist Dr. Aloysius Underberg may have cost him his job and forced them to move to a cottage in the sticks, but Gillian knows he's right and plans to prove it. When she discovers a missing page from Dr. Underberg's diary in her father's mess of an office, she thinks she's found a big piece of the puzzle...