Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.

Ramona Quimby is back. This time Ramona, the spirited youngest Quimby child, is having trouble understanding why Willa Jean can destroy boxes of tissues and make messes and still get all the attention. When Ramona finally gets time with her mother all by herself, things don't quite go as Ramona had planned.

A traveling circus arrives, sets up its village of tents, performs for the crowd, and then moves on again.