When Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show comes to Green Town, the book's protagonists, thirteenyear-old boys named Jim and Will, quickly discover that there is something evil riding with the carnival. A variety of frightening and bizarre transformations occur, many of them connected with the carnival's carousel. It seems to have the power to turn adults into children and children into adults. The novel is predominantly a frightening Gothic entertainment, but, on a more serious level, Bradbury treats the theme of maturity and the various ways it can be achieved.