John has been practicing a magic trick instead of the piano and is worried about disappointing his musician father, but then he gets to be a hero in the castle where his father is performing.
Describes inventor Margaret E. Knight's childhood, explaining how her interest in mechanical innovations began, and tells the story of her invention of a paper bag maker and her legal battle for the patent after someone stole her idea.
After the Great Bellini teaches young Mirette to walk the high wire, she uses her talent to free him from prison, and both resolve to help others become free.
Zaza, an acting bear, leaves the stage to become a regular cast member of a television show but discovers that performing for the small screen is not her cup of tea.
In 1916, a young boy named Tom Elson living in Iowa meets a stranger who has an unusual animal called a Farivox, maybe the last of its kind, and Tom becomes determined to buy it.
Zaza is embarrassed by the unusual life she and her family of actors leads, until a friend helps her regard it as wonderfully exotic rather than weird.
