The numbered order of the twelve racers changes as the bicycle race progresses.

Twelve-year-old Marcel loves riding his bicycle, and dreams of competing in the Tour de France, but it is 1942 and German soldiers are everywhere, stopping him as he delivers bread from his parents' bakery around Aucoin--then one day he discovers that it is not just bread he is delivering, and suddenly he finds himself in position of dangerous secrets about his parents and his new friend from Paris, Delphine.

"The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era ... Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than by any other form of transportation. ... Combining history, reportage, travelogue, and memoir, Rosen's book sweeps across centuries and around the globe, unfolding the bicycle's saga from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a 'green machine,' an emblem of sustainability in a world afflicted by...

In order to earn money for new bicycles, nine-year-old cousins Keats and Henry take a job at a very strange house where doors disappear, carpets bite, and a zombie shark comes after them.

A sleepy Princess in Black takes a much-needed vacation and rides her bicycle to the seaside, where she plans to nap in a hammock, but her peace is disrupted by a roaring sea monster.

Jason never turns down a dare, but when his classmates challenge him to a BMX competition Jason must learn to ride a BMX bike or this dare will be his last.

"At the end of an affair, a woman pilot in World War II recalls life in a remote Irish town where her husband and his brother lost everything in a bicycle race"--

"After Zara's bike goes missing, her parents insist on her earning money to pay for it, so she and her friend Naomi turn their red wagon into The Treasure Wagon and try and sell some old knickknacks found in her family's basement."--