Twelve-year-old Kallie despises nonsense. She believes there's a rational explanation for everything, despite the good-natured prodding of her Grandpa Jess, who takes her to frivolous wastes of time like their town's local Festival of Fools.There, Kallie meets a faceless man (must be some kind of mask) who gives her a strange wooden puzzle box (must be some kind of gimmick). Intrigued despite herself, Kallie sets to work on unlocking its secrets and...lets something out. From here Kallie's life begins to entangle with another world, a world where Liah, a young bone carver, journeys with her master to sell wares to a wicked Queen. The sights, sounds, smells, and spells of Liah's world are beginning to leak into Kallie's, and if Kallie can't decipher the meaning of her own story, "the end" might be far from happy.

Tuck Everlasting meets The Village in Shadow Grave, a delightfully eerie middle grade novel by Marina Cohen about a boy trapped in a strange town where secrets turn deadly and the unnatural lurks in the night. Twelve-year-old Arlo is afraid of fire, creepy TV shows, and even his own shadow—but most of all, he's afraid of losing his mother to the disease that nearly claimed her life a year ago.During a Thanksgiving road trip, a sudden collision with a strange beast in the middle of the road totals the family's car, and Arlo, his mom, and his sister end up stranded in a small town.There's something off about Livermore. No one has a phone or a car, and the townspeople aren't exactly friendly. Without phone service to make a call for help, the family stays at the Samuels' mansion, but inexplicable sightings at night set Arlo on edge. When he stumbles upon a dark secret that the town's inhabitants will kill to keep, getting out of Livermore...

All Hadley wants is for everything to go back to the way it used to be—back when she didn't have to share her mother with her stepfather and stepbrother. Back when she wasn't forced to live in a musty, decomposing house. Back when she had a life in the city with her friends. As Hadley whiles away what's left of her summer, exploring the nearby woods and splitting her time between her strange, bug-obsessed neighbor Gabe and the nice old lady that lives above the garage, she begins to notice the house isn't just old and creaky. It's full of secrets, just like appearance of a mysterious dollhouse and the family of perfect dolls she finds. Oh, how she wishes her family were more like those lovely dolls! Then one day, Hadley discovers a lone glass eye rolling around the floor of the attic. Holding it close one night, she makes a wish that just might change her world forever.

Short-listed for the 2011 Red Maple Award Fourteen-year-old Sam McLean is less than thrilled with the prospect of moving to a collection of old mansions on the northern fringe of a small town called Ringwood. A nobody at his old school, Sam is desperate to be accepted by the cool kids and latches on to Cody Barns, aka Maniac. Codys claim to fame is performing wild stunts the crazier the better and posting them on his blog. When Sam reluctantly joins Cody and his sidekick, Javon, on their midnight ghost riding, a practice in which the driver and passenger climb onto the hood of their moving car and dance, something goes terribly wrong. Cody convinces Sam to flee the scene, leaving Javon for dead. But soon mysterious messages appear on Codys blog and anonymous notes are slid into Sams locker. As Sam struggles with his conscience, a haunting question remains: Who else knows the truth?

Eleven-year-old Quinn has had some bad experiences lately. She was caught cheating in school, and then one day, her little sister Emma disappeared while walking home from school. She never returned.When Quinn's best friend Kara has to move away, she goes on one last trip with Kara and her family. They stop over at the first hotel they see, a Victorian inn that instantly gives Quinn the creeps, and she begins to notice strange things happening around them. When Kara's parents and then brother disappear without a trace, the girls are stranded in a hotel full of strange guests, hallways that twist back in on themselves, and a particularly nasty surprise lurking beneath the floorboards. Will the girls be able to solve the mystery of what happened to Kara's family before it's too late?

Fourteen-year-old Jake MacRaes life is spinning out of control. Hes making all the wrong choices gambling, drinking, hanging around gang members and now hes been asked to make a special delivery. What should he do? Jake knows either way that his decision will seal his fate, but what he doesnt realize is that this choice might not only destroy his life but the lives of those close to him. Before Jake has a chance to make up his mind, he receives a mysterious text message inviting him to a flash party on a midnight subway train. As Jake steps off the platform and onto the ghostly 1950s-style Gloucester car, he has no idea he has just boarded a train bound for his worst nightmare. And whats more he cant get off!

Teased by her older brother, bullied by the popular girls at school, and plagued by a blistering pimple that has surfaced on the tip of her nose, 12-year-old Claire Murphy wishes she could shrivel up and die or spontaneously combust. But when a mysterious book appears at her feet in the checkout aisle of a grocery store, Claire is confident all her troubles are over.Following the instructions carefully, Claire dives nose-first into reeking remedies, rollicking rituals, and silly spells. It's only when she recklessly disregards the Law of Three that the line between good and evil blurs and Claire must race against time to save not only herself but her sworn enemy, Hollis Van Horn, whom she's placed in mortal danger. As the two girls set out on a mission to locate the author of the book -- the elusive White Witch -- in order to "cleanse their characters" and reverse the spell, Claire discovers that both people and life are full of surprises.