Because Ellsworth, a dog, behaves too much like a dog when he is off duty, he is asked to leave his job as economics professor at Wallywell, causing him quite natural concern for the future.
Nothing seems to go right for Eugene, even when he wins a free trip to Bermuda, but while he is stranded on a tiny, deserted island after being shipwrecked, a broken-winged parrot tells him how to build a boat so that they can both be rescued.
Although he enjoys some aspects of his retirement, eight-year-old Brian gains a new perspective on his job of being a child after spending time in Florida's Happy Sunset Retirement Community.
Freddy LeGrand ends his transatlantic flight somewhere in the French countryside. Soon he sets out for Paris with a new plane, but trouble lies just beyond the next horizon.
One December night, a child dreams of an old man who makes a secret thing in his workshop that he later brings to the child's house through the falling snow.
Ludlow, a big grump, has a dream one night--the funniest dream in the world-and laughs out loud. The neighbors hear and can't stop laughing. A local radio station puts him on the air, but one night he doesn't laugh and Ludlow changes.
