– Because of the coffin!
Teen Middle (Grades 6-8)
by Edgar Allan Poe
A sweet little cat drives a man to insanity and murder. The grim death known as the plague roams a masquerade ball dressed in red. A dwarf seeks his final revenge on his captors. A sister calls to her beloved twin from beyond the grave. Prepare yourself. You are about to enter a world where you will be shocked, terrified, and, though you'll be too scared to admit it at first, secretly thrilled. Here are four tales -- The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, Hop-Frog, and The Fall of the House of Usher -- by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. The original tales have been ever so slightly dismembered -- but, of course, Poe understood dismemberment very well. And he would shriek in ghoulish delight at Gris Grimly's gruesomely delectable illustrations that adorn every page. So prepare yourself. And keep the lights on.
by Holly Black
Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.
by James Crowley
Chased into the woods by neighborhood bullies who are after his Halloween candy, fifth grader Charlie Cooper quickly gets lost and finds his way into Vampyreishtat--or Monsterland, an uncharted land where werewolves, mummies, and vampires live freely--and with the help of the Monster of all Monsters, Charlie hopes he will find his cousin Billy who disappeared a year ago.
by Mary Downing Hahn
A witch called Old Auntie is lurking near Dan's family's new home. He doesn't believe in her at first, but is forced to accept that she is real and take action when his little sister, Erica, is 'took' to become Auntie's slave for the next fifty years.
by Dan Poblocki
Since eighth-grader Gabriel Ashe moved into his grandmother's house he has been spending a lot of time playing in the woods with his new friend Seth, but the games Seth invents involve a child-eating monster called the Hunter, and Gabriel is not sure how much is imagination and how much real.
Teen High (Grades 9-12)
by Ann Davila Cardinal
When Lupe Dávila arrives in Puerto Rico for the summer, she'll be staying with her uncle, the local police chief. Javier Utierre's friends are dying in a series of grisly murders. Is it the el Cuco -- or someone human? Working together, Lupe and Javier will have to step into the shadows to see what's lurking there: murderer, or monster?
by Rin Chupeco
Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due, but when she meets Tark she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.
by Joseph Delaney
Fifteen-year-old Billy guards a castle prison. But it isn't just criminals he'll be guarding--the ghosts of executed prisoners haunt the place.
by Justina Ireland
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania-- derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. Now laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. But it's not a life Jane wants. When families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy... and the restless dead are the least of her problems.
by Deborah Noyes
Drawing on dark fantasy and the fairy tale as well as horror and wild humor, ten acclaimed authors pay homage to the gothic tale in wide-ranging stories of the supernatural and surreal.
Amy Billings
Youth Specialist
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