Each of five children lucky enough to discover an entry ticket into Mr. Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory takes advantage of the situation in his own way.

"Kilmer Watts makes his living teaching piano lessons, but when automatic pianos arrive in town, he realizes he's out of a job. He spots a "Help Wanted" sign at the poem factory and decides to investigate -- he's always been curious about how poems are made. The foreman explains that machines and assembly lines are used for poetry these days. So Kilmer learns how to operate the "meter meter" and empty the "cliché bins." He assembles a poem by picking...

Geronimo Stilton regrets that he is too busy to celebrate Christmas in New Mouse City and wishes he could fly to Santa's toy factory.

Panda, Zebra, and Penguin invite the reader to tour a factory where messes, color, and surprises are forbidden but an accident occurs and the reader must help clean it up.

Uncle Flores is the best tailor in the town of Pinbauê in Brazil. He used to make colourful costumes for the carnival, but nowadays he only makes grey uniforms for the factory workers. The houses are covered with dust from the factory, the river water is murky, and everything is drab. Edinho, his nephew, comes by every day after school to help cut and iron the cloth and listen to his uncle's stories. But when the factory tells Uncle Flores they...

Panda, Penguin, and Zebra lead a tour of the Color Factory, where only twelve perfect colors are approved, but things go wrong and the reader must help set them right.

It is 1911, and 14-year-old Lucia (Lucy) Morelli dreams of going to college, but for the present she lives with her large Italian family in a crowded apartment in New York City, and works as a sewing machine operator in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory bringing home money because her father can no longer work--but this is March twenty-fifth, and Lucy will soon be fighting for her life as fire sweeps through the locked down factory trapping the workers...