In 1937, eleven-year-old Hugo Ballard and his family are making a transatlantic journey on the Hindenburg zeppelin, but as the airship gets ready to land, a blast rocks it, sparking a fire that puts Hugo in a desperate race to escape the flames.
When Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Ann, lose their jobs to the gasoline, electric, and diesel motor shovels, they go to a little country town where they find that one new job leads to another. On board pages.