Displaying their best work at school in preparation for Parents' Day, Nancy and her sidekick, Bree, are on the case when a prized possession goes missing, in a first chapter book starring the irrepressible Nancy Clancy.
In the year before they become the orphans known as the Boxcar children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden live with their parents at Fair Meadow Farm, where, although times are hard, they take in a family who has been stranded in their car during a blizzard.
Simon cannot help being big and noisy, until he goes to Africa with his parents and watches a herd of elephants being big and noisy sometimes and silent when they need to be quiet.