"Jolene loves watching The Desert Aviator, a livestream of twelve-year-old "Addie Earhart" flying her ultralight plane and exploring the desert....Then it all goes wrong: Addie's engine abruptly stops, and Jolene watches in helpless horror as the ultralight crashes and the video goes dark. With no one to turn to for help and only a hand-drawn map and a stolen cell phone to rely on, Jolene must find a way to save the Desert Aviator." -- Page 4 of cover....

On a cattle drive in the desert on the night before Cowboy Ned's birthday, his horse Andy goes in search of a birthday cake, which he thinks will make Ned's birthday complete. It's Cowboy Ned's birthday! His trusty dapple gray steed, Andy, knows that the best thing to have on your birthday is a birthday cake. While Cowboy Ned sleeps soundly, Andy wanders across the desert in search of a birthday surprise for his friend and along the way discovers...

Eleven-year-old Zagora Pym, who possesses an otherworldly stone, travels to the Moroccan desert with her archaeologist father and astronomy-obsessed brother on a quest to save the ancient city of Zahir.

Many of the animals that live in the southwestern desert witness the race between slow but steady Tortoise and the quick, overconfident Jackrabbit.

A lonely young rattlesnake finds that making friends in the desert is not as easy as he originally thought it would be.

"You're ready to spend an exciting summer in Moab, Utah! Hiking, rafting, camping, and even volunteering at a dinosaur dig could fill up your summer -- depnding on the choices YOU make! But beware -- you could run into dangerous creatures and sinister strangers! Can you make the right choices to survive your Moab summer, or will you get trapped in the desert -- or worse? Unlike other stories, you get to decide how you'd like your adventure to go and...

The rhyming text follows a lone tumbleweed in its journey across a desert teeming with life.

Meet Mr. Penguin - adventurer (and penguin). He has a dashing hat. He has a packed lunch. He is very keen. When Mr Penguin discovers that his good friend Edith has been kidnapped, he's on his most important mission yet. Will he survive a perilous train journey through the desert? Can he complete three impossible tasks ... and still get home in time for a fish finger sandwich?

"In her third story, Luciana and her family are headed to Chile for winter break. Luci can't wait to see her cousins - but the reunion doesn't go as planned, and Luci feels like an outsider in her own family. Just then she receives a surprise invite from Claire Jacobs, her frenemy from astronaut training camp, to join her at the Mars habitat in the desert and watch NASA scientists at work. It's an offer too good to refuse, so Luci decides to leave...