On a mission to pay the ransom of a new ally, apprentice Will and his friends find themselves in a desert wasteland awash with enemies.

"Separated from their group during a sixth-graders geocaching trip, Jen Chiu and her mortal enemy, Martin Diaz, are caught in a dust storm in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexio desert. When their van gets a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, they decide to bike off on their own to get a head start, Without warning, a blinding wall of dust and debris barrels toward them, Separated from their field trip group and in the desert alone, they will have...

"Geronimo takes a vacation to the Camel Oasis!"--

While in the Australian desert, ant-sized Andrew, his cousin Judy, and Thudd the robot are carried away by a dust-devil and face many dangerous creatures, from a flock of wild parakeets to a Perenti lizard, as they try to make their way back to Uncle Al.

On a visit to her grandmother Ola, who is dying of cancer in her house in the desert, fourteen-year-old Emmie hears many stories about the past and her family history and comes to a better understanding of relatives both dead and living. The videotaping is Ola's idea--Ola, Emmie's grandma who lives in the California desert is dying of cancer. Emmie and her mother have come to "the dry" to paack up Ola's house and take her back to a hospital in Cleveland....

When hard-working animals complain to "the magic desert watcher" about camel's laziness, the watcher agrees to make things more fair.

Having reached the mature age of eleven in the tiny California town of Hard Pan (population 43), Lucky discovers that there is still much to learn about friendship, parental trust, and the Milky Way galaxy.

"Cactus and Flower spend their days in the desert, side by side. They grow, slowly but surely. Then one day, Flower loses a petal. Cactus and Flower know what this means. But they know, too, that this is the way life goes: Slowly but surely, petals will fall, and new buds will bloom"--

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...

Armed with only her revolver, her wits, and the Demdji powers she's struggling to control, Amani must rally a crew of rebels to take on the bloodthirsty sultan of Miraji and free the imprisoned prince Ahmed. But as the rescue mission travels through the unforgiving desert to a place that, according to maps, doesn't exist, Amani questions whether she is leading them all to their deaths.