Steve Johnson thought his daughter, Ada, had died in a blizzard and he was responsible – so he abandoned his homestead and set off to join the great California Gold rush. But Ada was safe and with her pet grizzly bear, Lady Grey, she was on her way to California to try to find her father.
Young Carol Cansdale is accompanying her uncle, Professor James Cansdale, on an expedition into the unexplored wilds of Brazil to find a unicorn. Professor Cansdale is certain-that the unicorn is not merely a creature of fable but lives in the dense jungle. When Carol’s pet monkey, Bobo, goes into the jungle, she searches for him and stumbles on a glade filled with “flowers of sleep”, plants-that give off a scent that makes people drowsy. Carol falls unconscious in the jungle—just after seeing a unicorn’s head. When she recovers and returns to the expedition’s boat, and finds that the party have been taken captive.
In Victorian times, during a long couch journey a girl met with accident and suffered a partial memory loss. She thought her name was Josie and faintly remembered a small boy with her. But nobody remembered seeing a boy and desperate with worry Josie set out to find him. Her only clue being a lock of hair.
Sara and Ron are staying in London with their Gran. Everyone was busy organising a huge family party and Uncle Jack writes to ask them to collect a secret Christmas surprise. But they had lost it at a jumble sale and were now trying to track it down.
Linda and Carol Milne, twelve year old twins, discovered that because of a witch’s curse laid on an ancestor, one of every pair of twins born in the family, was doomed to die before their thirteenth birthday. The curse could only be undone by a strange witch’s necklace made up of thirteen linking pieces. To spare their family the girls kept their discovery a secret and set out to track down the 12 medallions and the chain.
When the Finn family was moving away Becky Finn’s cat, Nell was lost in an accident. Around Nell’s neck was a charm bracelet Becky had given her. On the bracelet were nine charms one for each of Nell’s nine lives, but Nells luck and her nine lives were running out fast, as she desperately tried to find her way back to Becky.
On Rose Redman’s birthday her parents had shown her Redfire the Redman Ruby a priceless gem that was in a secret compartment of her fathers cane. Then Rosie’s parents were killed and all belongings sold off. When her pony, Punch and dog, Judy turned up a the orphanage she decided to go search for Redfire.
Born and raised in the outback of Australia, young Scrubcat Jackson had been the only one to see where nuclear rockets had landed when they had been launched in mistake by a foreign power. Her uncanny knowledge of the country had enabled Scrubcat to lead Major Chisolm, the de-fusing expert, to five of the rockets.
Orphan Jane Ackroyd seemed destined to end up in a workhouse, until she discovered she had a sister, Sarah who had run off to join the circus many years before. Sarah had built up a reputation as a juggler and somehow Sarah’s old doll had the special ability of giving Jane glimpses of Sarah.
Paula Bates was helping a fairy princess to hunt the tiger eye, a talisman that would help the princess save her people from the evil black lord and his soldiers.