In Guardians of the Gryphon’s Claw by Todd Calgi Gallicano, Sam London is a twelve-year-old-boy from Benicia, California, who lives with his single mom. For fourteen nights in a row, he starts having vivid dreams about a mythical world. As he starts wondering if he's ever going to be able to sleep again, he’s surprised to find a book in the school library called The Great and Powerful Gryphon by Dr. Henry Knox, which has a picture on the front cover that matches what has been appearing in his dreams. Then he sees a lottery-winning gas station on the news that is located exactly where his dreams are taking place in Death Valley, California, and he decides that he has to go there.

He has no idea that he's getting ready to face the greatest adventure of his life. When he winds up meeting strangers along the way and mythical creatures in national parks all over the world, he’s forced to figure out who he can and can’t trust. Sam plays a huge role in unraveling the mystery of a gryphon’s curse and determining if the mythical world will continue to co-exist behind the scenes of the human world.