Eleven-year-old Kayleigh Fisher is excited when a carnival comes to his town, but soon his excitement gives way to suspicion and dread when he first sees the clowns' menacing and spooky faces.

When Ella the elephant goes to the carnival and loses her lucky hat in a storm, she learns a valuable lesson about the real meaning of luck.

Best friends Cornbread and Poppy spend a day at the Carnival playing games, eating snacks, and riding the Ferris wheel.

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.