When Michelle's fourth grade class is given the opportunity to star in a dog food commercial and the only catch is that Ernest the dog has to like them, Michelle thinks it should be a snap until she meets Ernest.

Gyp, a cheerful but always silent sheep dog, startles everyone with uncharacteristic behavior during the championship sheep dog trials.

Michelle's forced to team up with Rachel Tilly for the class bird watching assignment. When they spot a rare Cassin's finch, a reporter wants to put their pictures in the newspaper. The girls are excited, until Michelle realizes that the bird they saw wasn't a Cassin's finch. She wants to tell the truth--but Rachel has another idea that could either save the day or get them in really hot water.

In Italy, Stephanie and Corey Griffin fall in love with each other, but suddenly Corey wants to break up.

Fired from his job at Phag magazine, Peter Mallory has to find a way to make a living...and get revenge! When his best friend suggests writing a book about the bear community--and using his new ursine look to go undercover at Phag--Peter is soon letting his body hair grow and practising the fine art of flannel couture. When Peter's sabotage campaign works only too well, he starts to run the risk of discovery. With an envious fellow bear set to unmask Peter as a fraud, and a relationship with an intriguing bear on the line, things are about to get very hairy!

Michelle finds a Web site that's giving away free teddy bears. She quickly orders a bunch for her and her classmates, but soon learns that the teddies weren't really free. Now Michelle has to get them all back--or else she'll be stuck with a big bill!

Sam, also known as The Alaskan, was a homicide detective way, way up north. Because it was a small department and there were very few homicides, he decided to retire after twenty years and moved to a bigger department, bigger city, with more homicides. He got the reputation of solving the "hard ones." Sam, with his quirky partner, Ed, have now been given a homicide case to investigate. Sam knows he will be retiring from his second law enforcement career in a week. The Alaskan has seven days to investigate the case and it's a tough one. Each day is full of adventure, folly and new discoveries. Can Sam and Ed solve this case in only seven days?