The Billy Ben stories are about a young boy who loves to paint and one day finds himself able to go into his pictures and have adventures. His first picture takes him to a warm beach when he is tired of the snow around his house. After worrying that he will be unable to get home, he finds himself doodling in the sand with a stick and draws his room, and when he smells his mom cooking brownies, he finds himself back in his room. The second picture is of a jungle with a tiger walking away, his tail swaying. As the boy watches, he sees a young girl in a sari who looks frightened and turns to run. Billy Ben runs into the picture to help the girl and has another adventure in an Indian village. The third picture was a result of having been to see a magician with his parents. When he got home, he decided that if he drew the magicians hat, he might be able to find out where the rabbit came from; instead, he found himself falling into the hat and into magic land where he had another kind of adventure. One day, Billy Ben and his friend Patty were at a display in the planetarium, and when Patty screamed because she thought the planets were going to fall on her, Billy Ben decided to take her on one of his trips, this one to the red planet Marsthats exactly what his fourth picture was. Ben and Patty have a different kind of adventure that had some bad people in it that wanted to keep them there. The fifth picture was a result of some serious reading about Camelot and showed the courtyard of the castle just at the time Guinevere was expected to arrive to marry Arthur.
