CAR |
Skeleton Creek Series (age 10+) by Patrick Carman letters/journal ... mystery ... adventure Publisher comments: Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see. title: Skeleton Creek |
HOR |
The Alex Rider Series (age 10+) by Anthony Horowitz brilliant protagonist ... math/science/technology ... mystery ... action ... adventure They told him his uncle died in a car accident. Fourteen-year-old Alex knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's windshield confirm his suspicions. But nothing prepares him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for MI6 ... Britain's top secret intelligence agency. Recruited to find his uncle's killers and complete his final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse. title: Stormbreaker title: Point Blank: An Alex Rider Adventure title: Skeleton Key title: Eagle Strike title: Scorpia title: Ark Angel title: Snakehead |
AIK |
Midnight Is a Place
(age 10+) by Joan Aiken adventure ... mystery ... historical ... spooky Publisher comments: Lucas Bell is lonely and miserable at Midnight Court, a vast, brooding house owned by his intolerable guardian, Sir Randolph Grimsby. When a mysterious carriage brings a visitor to the house, Lucas hopes hes found a friend at last. But the newcomer, Anna Marie, is unfriendly and spoiled—and French. Just when Lucas thinks things cant get any worse, disastrous circumstances force him and Anna Marie, parentless and penniless, into the dark and unfriendly streets of Blastburn. |
BRU |
Skeleton Man
(age 10+) by Joseph Bruchac spooky ... mystery Publisher comments: Ever since the morning Molly woke up to find that her parents had vanished, her life has become filled with terrible questions. Where have her parents gone? Who is this spooky old man who's taken her to live with him, claiming to be her great-uncle? Why does he never eat, and why does he lock her in her room at night? What are her dreams of the Skeleton Man trying to tell her? There's one thing Molly does know. She needs to find some answers before it's too late. |
DOW |
The London Eye Mystery
(age 10+) by Siobhan Dowd family ... mystery Publisher comments: Ted and Kat watched their cousin Salim board the London Eye, but after half an hour it landed and everyone trooped off, except Salim. Where could he have gone? How on earth could he have disappeared into thin air? Ted and his older sister, Kat, become sleuthing partners, since the police are having no luck. Despite their prickly relationship, they overcome their differences to follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin. And ultimately it comes down to Ted, whose brain works in its own unique way, to find the key to the mystery. |
SHE |
Canned
(age 10+) by Alex Shearer mystery ... realistic ... adventure Fergal Bamfield doesn't collect stamps like normal kids. He's an oddball (his mother prefers to call him "clever"), and his collection is as strange as everything else about him. Fergal Bamfield collects tin cans. Then one day he finds a can without a label. What could be in it? Peaches, soup, perhaps revolting spam? But instead it's something gruesome: a human finger. Then Fergal finds another can, this time containing a one-word message, HELP! Now Fergal and his friend Charlotte are knee-deep in an adventure, and they're about to learn something horrible: Everybody has an expiration date. |
FAR |
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm: a novel
(age 10+) by Nancy Farmer growing up ... mystery ... adventure ... science fiction General Matsika's children steal out of the house on a forbidden adventure--and disappear. In Zimbabwe, in the year 2194, the children's parents call in Africa's most unusual detectives--the Ear, the Eye and the Arm--who have powers far beyond those of other human beings. The children must avoid the evils of the past, the technology of the future, and a motley assortment of criminals in order to return home safely. |
STE |
First Light
(age 10+) by Rebecca Stead math/science/technology ... fantasy ... adventure ... mystery Peter is thrilled to join his parents on an expedition to Greenland, where his father studies global warming. Peter will get to skip school, drive a dogsled, and-finally-share in his dad's adventures. But on the ice cap, Peter struggles to understand a series of visions that both frighten and entice him. Thea has never seen the sun. Her extraordinary people, suspected of witchcraft and nearly driven to extinction, have retreated to a secret world they've built deep inside the arctic ice. As Thea dreams of a path to Earth's surface, Peter's search for answers brings him ever closer to her hidden home. Rebecca Stead's fascinating novel is a dazzling tale of mystery, science and adventure at the top of the world. |
SMI |
Cryptid Hunters
(age 10+) by Roland Smith adventure ... action ... mystery In this thrilling adventure, 13-year-old twins Grace and Marty are sent to live with their anthropologist uncle and discover that he's obsessed with finding cryptids, mysterious creatures believed to be long extinct. |
MAS |
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
(age 10+) by Wendy Mass mystery ... realistic ... growing up In one month Jeremy Fink will turn thirteen. But does he have what it takes to be a teenager? He collects mutant candy, he won't venture more than four blocks from his apartment if he can help it, and he definitely doesn't like surprises. On the other hand, his best friend, Lizzy, isn't afraid of anything, even if that might get her into trouble now and then. Jeremy's summer takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious wooden box arrives in the mail. According to the writing on the box, it holds the meaning of life Jeremy is supposed to open it on his thirteenth birthday. The problem is, the keys are missing, and the box is made so that only the keys will open it without destroying what's inside. Jeremy and Lizzy set off to find the keys, but when one of their efforts goes very wrong, Jeremy starts to lose hope that he'll ever be able to open the box. But he soon discovers that when you're meeting people named Oswald Oswald and using a private limo to deliver unusual objects to strangers all over the city, there might be other ways of finding out the meaning of life. |
IBB |
The Beasts of Clawstone Castle
(age 10+) by Eva Ibbotson humor ... spooky ... mystery When their parents go to America, Madlyn and Rollo are sent to their relatives at Clawstone Castle, home of the legendary Wild White Cattle of Clawstone Park. Times are hard at Clawstone, so Madlyn and Rollo audition a cast of ghosts to add some thrills to the Clawstone tours. Then a very real mystery arises. |
BER |
The Puzzling World of Winston Breen
(age 10+) by Eric Berlin mystery ... enterprise ... math/science/technology Winston Breen finds puzzles everywhere, even on pizzas, and solving them is what he does best. But when his sister uncovers mysterious wooden strips with words and letters that even Winston can't figure out, the entire family is obsessed. It turns out the strips are part of a scavenger hunt that a town patriarch set up for his children. If all four sets are put together, they will lead to a ring worth thousands of dollars. Cooperating seems like a no-brainer to Winston, but to solve the puzzle, the group has to overcome mysterious threats, mutual mistrust, 25-year-old clues, and participants who will do anything to keep the treasure for themselves. |
CON |
Stonewords: a Ghost Story
(age 10+) by Pam Conrad mystery ... spooky The first time Zoe met Zoe Louise, Zoe was four years old. Zoe Louise was more than 100. From that day on, living in the same house, separated by a staircase and a century, Zoe and Zoe Louise have been an important and permanent part of each other's lives. Now Zoe is older. And although Zoe Louise never grows up, she is changing in dreadful, frightening ways. Time is running out for Zoe's best friend, and Zoe is the only one who can help her. |
SAC |
Holes
(age 10+) by Louis Sachar humor ... mystery ... friendship Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys ``build character'' by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment, and redemption. |
HES |
Witness
(age 10+) by Karen Hesse mystery ... bigotry ... historical Leanora Sutter. Esther Hirsh. Merlin Van Tornhout. Johnny Reeves. These characters are among the unforgettable cast inhabiting a small Vermont town in 1924. A town that turns against its own when the Ku Klux Klan moves in. No one is safe, especially the two youngest, twelve-year-old Leanora, an African-American girl, and six-year-old Esther, who is Jewish. In this story of a community on the brink of disaster, told through the haunting and impassioned voices of its inhabitants, Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse takes readers into the hearts and minds of those who bear witness. |
DUN |
The Third Eye
(age 10+) by Lois Duncan mystery For the first time in her life, Karen is part of the popular crowd at school. Then when one of the neighborhood children disappears, Karen discovers that she can somehow ``see'' the missing child. Will she use her gift in this dangerous game of hide-and-seek? |
BEL |
The Mansion in the Mist
(age 10+) by John Bellairs science fiction ... fantasy ... mystery ... spooky While spending the summer in an old house on a desolate Canadian island, Anthony Monday and Miss Eells discover a chest that can transport them to another world and a maniacal group who are plotting the destruction of people on Earth. |
VAN |
Sammy Keyes Series (age 10+) by Wendelin VanDraanen mystery Sammy is a smart and spunky seventh grader, and she's an irrepressible sleuth. In the first book of this mystery/detective series, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief, Sammy witnesses a robbery, and then sets out to prove it. title: Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief title: Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary title: Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy title: Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man title: Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes title: Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash |
RAS |
The Westing Game
(age 10+) by Ellen Raskin humor ... mystery When an eccentric millionaire dies mysteriously, sixteen very unlikely people are gathered together for the reading of the will...and what a will it is! |
HAM |
The House of Dies Drear
(age 10+) by Virginia Hamilton spooky ... historical ... mystery The house held secrets, Thomas knew, even before he first saw it looming gray and massive on its ledge of rock. It had a century-old legend - two fugitive slaves had been killed by bounty hunters after leaving its passageways, and Dies Drear himself, the abolitionist who has made the house into a station on the Underground Railroad, had been murdered there. The ghosts of the three were said to walk its rooms... sequel: The Mystery of Drear House |
HOL |
Following Fake Man
(age 10+) by Barbara Ware Holmes identity ... illness/loss ... mystery ... family Homer Aldrich Winthrop was a neurologist who died of a neurological illness. That's all Homer Jr.'s mother will say about his father, who died when he was two. On an unexpected trip to Maine, 12-year-old Homer realizes there may be a reason his father is such a secret. |
HOE |
Hermux Tantamoq Adventures (age 10+) by Michael Hoeye the arts ... mystery ... adventure ... friendship Hermux Tantamoq is an average mouse who works in his watch shop by day and spends his evenings at home. Nothing extraordinary has ever happened to him, but that changes when Linka Perflinger, daredevil aviatrix, drops off her watch to be repaired and steals his heart. But when a shady-looking rat tries to claim the repaired watch instead of Linka, Hermux knows something's gone wrong. Before long, Hermux is entangled in the convoluted schemes of an eccentric cosmetics tycoon, a sinister plastic surgeon, and a squad of ruthless lab rats. Hermux is caught up in a deadly race against time. title: Time Stops for No Mouse title: The Sands of Time: a [new] Hermux Tantamoq Adventure title: No Time Like Show Time: a Hermux Tantamoq Adventure |
HIA |
Hoot
(age 10+) by Carl Hiaasen mystery ... nature ... humor If Dana hadn't been sinking his thumbs into Roy's temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is intriguing: he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and...here's the odd part...wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy's trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails. |
BYN |
Molly Moon Series (age 10+) by Georgia Byng identity ... mystery ... magic ... adventure ... friendship ... family Molly Moon is no ordinary orphan. When she finds a mysterious old book on hypnotism, she discovers she can make people do whatever she wants. But a sinister stranger is watching her every move, and he'll do anything to steal her hypnotic secret... title: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism title: Molly Moon Stops the World title: Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure |