Samantha's uncle mysteriously disappears, leaving behind extravagant gifts for her siblings and an old, rusty, red umbrella for Samantha that may contain clues to his whereabouts.

When twelve-year-old Ben visits his uncle in Oregon, he feels caught in the strained relationship between his mother and her brother while he also begins to accept himself as an artist.

In a cold, gloomy castle where all the clocks have stopped, a wicked Duke amuses himself by finding new and fiendish ways of rejecting the suitors for his niece, the good and beautiful Princess Saralinda.

Twelve-year-old Xavier Moon gets the courage to step out of the shadows when his great-uncle gives him some outlandish socks and some even stranger requests.

When ten-year-old Emma Burblee's beautiful but snobbish parents banish her to Nummington for the summer with her loathsome Uncle Simon, she is befriended by the seemingly magical town baker, Mr. Crackle, who soon becomes a target of Simon and his associate.

When Bad Kitty's owners must leave for a week and Uncle Murray comes to take care of Bad Kitty and Puppy, chaos ensues. Bad Kitty escapes the house, fights with Puppy, has separation anxiety, and finally makes a deal with Uncle Murray to be nicer to him.

Darkus Cuttle has taken care of his father ever since his mother died, but one day his father vanished from a locked vault at the Natural History Museum, and now he lives with his eccentric uncle--but one day he finds a large and unusually intelligent and self-aware beetle, and soon he and his two friends are caught up in a struggle to protect an intelligent super species of beetles.

Dear Reader, if you have picked up this book with the hope of finding a simple and cheery tale, I'm afraid you have picked up the wrong book altogether. The story may seem cheery at first, when the Baudelaire children spend time in the company of some interesting reptiles and a giddy uncle, but don't be fooled. If you know anything at all about the unlucky Baudelaire children, you already know that even pleasant events lead down the same road to misery....

"It's supposed to be a relaxing vacation, but instead Geronimo works his tail off fixing up an old castle. Worst. Vacation. Ever!" --

When Charmain is asked to housesit for Great Uncle William, the Royal Wizard of Norland, she is ecstatic to get away from her parents, but finds that his house is much more than it seems.