When petty thief Gilly, who lives with five younger brothers and sisters in a run-down boot, gets caught stealing, she is sentenced to three months at Fairy Tale Reform School, where all of the teachers are former villains, including the Big Bad Wolf, the Evil Queen, and Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother.

Formerly dead Milton Fauster tries to save his older sister Marlo from "eternal darnation" when she is sent to another educational level of the Underworld reform school known as Heck.

When timid Milton and his older, scofflaw sister Marlo die in a marshmallow bear explosion at Grizzly Mall, they are sent to Heck, an otherworldly reform school from which they are determined to escape.

Rumpelstiltskin has taken over Fairy Tale Reform School, where Gilly's younger sister, Anna, has been sentenced, and Gilly must break in to save her.

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Grisby has been sent to the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys, a former lunatic asylum which is currently run by a sadist who enjoys punishing the boys and setting them against each other; but when a lightning strike kills all the adults the boys find themselves suddenly free--and trapped on Scar Island which seems to be sinking into the ocean.

"Siblings Charlotte and Tobias are trapped within a creepy reform school--and entangled in its dark secrets"--

Eleven-year-old Milton Fauster puts aside his own escape plans to help his sister, Marlo, who is in training to be an underworld secretary, and his best friend, Virgil, who is stuck in the circle of Heck reserved for overweight children.