For one hour every night between seven and eight o'clock it is possible for book characters to come out of their books and wander freely amongst their neighbouring volumes. On one such night the hero of our book, Little Tom, sees a young girl being kidnapped by a gorilla. He decides to save her but must catch up with them by eight o'clock and get back to his own book before he is shut out in the 'twilight world'. Little Tom has to follow a trail of banana skins, and collect the pages from an alphabet book that the little girl is scattering as clues, and also collect the golden doubloons that the Pirate lets fall from his pockets - as well as a whole host of other objects, while chasing through the pages of other books on the library shelves.