FRE |
Fourth Grade Weirdo
(age 8-11) by Martha Freeman humor ... mystery ... school Publisher comments: Dexter is like a square peg in a round hole: he just can't fit in. All the kids in his class enjoy the zany things their teacher Mr. Ditzwinkle does to make learning fun. All except Dexter, the weirdo who prefers the same routine. But when things start disappearing from school, Dexter is surprised that his teacher is suspected. Dexter thinks Mr. Ditzwinkle is odd, but he knows he's not a crook. Can Dexter the weirdo prove it by catching the real thief? |
VAN |
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
(age 8-11) by Chris Van Allsburg authorship ... mystery Harris left a title, but you fill in the stories accompanying these beautifully detailed illustrations. |
TAS |
My Life As a Book
(age 8-11) by Janet Tashjian humor ... mystery ... school Publisher comments: Summer's finally here, and Derek Fallon is looking forward to pelting the UPS truck with water balloons, climbing onto the garage roof, and conducting silly investigations. But when his parents decide to send him to Learning Camp, Derek's dreams of fun come to an end. Ever since hes been labeled a "reluctant reader," his mom has pushed him to read "real" books; something other than his beloved Calvin & Hobbes. As Derek forges unexpected friendships and uncovers a family secret involving himself (in diapers! no less), he realizes that adventures and surprises are around the corner, complete with curve balls. |
ASC |
Pearl's Promise
(age 8-11) by Frank Asch friendship ... adventure ... mystery With her brother in the clutches of a python in a pet shop, Pearl, a mouse, goes through hair-raising adventures to rescue him. |
Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators Series (age 8-11) mystery Jupiter Jones' firm of young detectives is on the case. title: Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Dancing Devil : based on characters created by Robert Arthur by William Arden F ARD title: Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in The Secret of Phantom Lake : based on characters created by Robert Arthur by William Arden F ARD title: The Three Investigators in the Mystery of the Deadly Double by William Arden F ARD title: The Three Investigators in the Mystery of the Shrinking House by William Arden F ARD title: The Three Investigators in the Secret of Shark Reef by William Arden F ARD | |
BAB |
Kneeknock Rise
(age 8-11) by Natalie Babbitt folklore ... mystery From the moment young Egan arrives in Instep, he senses the spell cast over the villagers by the Megrimum--the mysterious something that lurks on the mist-wreathed peak of Kneeknock Rise. Everyone shudders in horror--delicious horror--whenever the Megrimum's unearthly wail floats down to the village. Before long, Egan is climbing the Rise to find a practical explanation for those wails. |
BEL |
The Johnny Dixon Mysteries (age 8-11) by John Bellairs magic ... spooky ... mystery Thirteen-year-old Johnny Dixon joins Professor Childermass to take on the forces of evil...both natural and supernatural. title: The Eyes of the Killer Robot title: The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt title: The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost |
CLE |
Keepers of the School (age 8-11) by Andrew Clements friendship ... mystery ... school Publisher comments: Benjamin Pratt's school is about to become the site of a new amusement park. It sounds like a dream come true But lately, Ben has been wondering if he's going to like an amusement park in the middle of his town - with all the buses and traffic and eight dollar slices of pizza. It's going to change everything. And, Ben is not so big on all the new changes in his life, like how his dad has moved out and started living in the marina on what used to be the family sailboat. Maybe it would be nice if the school just stayed as it is. He likes the school. Loves it, actually. It's over 200 years old and sits right on the harbor. The playground has ocean breezes and the classrooms have million dollar views. MILLION DOLLAR views. And after a chance — and final — run-in with the school janitor, Ben starts to discover that these MILLION DOLLAR views have a lot to do with the deal to sell the school property. But, as much as the town wants to believe it, the school does not belong to the local government. It belongs to the CHILDREN and these children have the right to defend it Don't think Ben, his friend Jill (and the tag-along Robert) can ruin a multimillion dollar real estate deal? Then you don't know the history and the power of the Keepers of the School. A suspenseful six book series, book one, We the Children, starts the battle on land and on sea. It's a race to keep the school from turning into a ticket booth and these kids are about to discover just how threatening a little knowledge can be. title: We the Children title: Fear Itself |
CHE |
The Would-Be Witch
(age 8-11) by Ruth Chew mystery ... spooky Two children are convinced that the owner of the nearby antique shop is a witch. |
COR |
Dead Before Docking
(age 8-11) by Scott Corbett mystery A young boy accidentally discovers that a murder is planned on board his Panama-bound freighter. Who is the victim? Who is the killer? |
HUT |
Follow That Bus!
(age 8-11) by Pat Hutchins adventure ... school ... mystery Two bank robbers find that a group of second graders visiting a farm are more than they bargained for. |
ROB |
Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job
(age 8-11) by Willo Davis Roberts mystery ... adventure A baby sitter and her three willful charges make a formidable team to outwit their surprised kidnappers. |
STI |
Goosbumps Series (age 8-11) by R. L. Stine mystery ... spooky The Goosbumps mystery series will chill you to the bone! title: Attack of the Jack-o'-Lanterns title: Don't Go to Sleep! title: My Best Friend is Invisible title: My Hairiest Adventure title: You Can't Scare Me! |
SMI |
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
(age 8-11) by Dodie Smith mystery ... humor The daring, hilarious pack of hounds is at the center of this classic tale of canine intrigue. |
HOW |
Tales from the House of Bunnicula (age 8-11) by James Howe authorship ... humor ... mystery Dear possible reader of this book: I want to be a writer, just like my uncle Harold, who wrote a bunch of books about our friend Bunnicula. So I wrote this story. And boy! Did I ever get into trouble! My friend Delilah stopped speaking to me because I put her in my book. Uncle Harold stopped speaking to me because I didn't put him in my book. A writer's life isn't easy! But back to my story: It's about how a talented and lovable (not to mention smart) wirehaired dachshund puppy named Howie saves the world from a disgusting, evil menace named...oops, that would give away the story. But trust me, this menace is disgusting and evil, all right!!! Your friend, Howie title: Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6! title: Nighty-Nightmare |
HOR |
Diamond Brothers Mysteries (age 8-11) by Anthony Horowitz humor ... mystery What would Tim Diamond, the world's worst private detective, do without his quick-thinking brother Nick? The bumbling detective and his kid brother are at it again in these hilarious, fast-paced mysteries. Find out if Nick can get to the bottom of these mysteries before Tim messes everything up, or worse, gets them both killed. title: Public Enemy Number Two: a Diamond Brothers Mystery title: The Falcon's Malteser title: Three of Diamonds: Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries |
BOS |
Series: The Name of This Book Is Secret (age 8-11) by Pseudonymous Bosch mystery ... adventure ... action ... humor Publisher comments: Warning: this description has not been authorized by Pseudonymous Bosch. As much as he'd love to sing the praises of his book (he is very vain), he wouldn't want you to hear about his brave 11-year old heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest. Or about how a mysterious box of vials, the Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who has vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances. And he certainly wouldn't want you to know about the hair-raising adventures that follow and the nefarious villains they face. You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story inside is, too. For it concerns a secret. A Big Secret. title: The Name of This Book Is Secret title: If You're Reading This, It's Too Late title: This Book Is Not Good For You title: This Isn't What It Looks Like title: You Have To Stop This |
WRI |
The Ghost of Ernie P.
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright mystery ... spooky Catalog: After a freak accident kills Ernie and cuts short his Top Secret Plan, his friend Jeff is haunted by Ernie's ghost and pushed toward carrying out the plan. |
WRI |
A Ghost in the Window
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright mystery ... spooky Catalog: A man who died in a car crash after allegedly stealing $50,000 from a bank, tries to communicate with the family through Meg's dreams. Sequel to "The Secret Window." |
WRI |
The Secret Window
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright mystery ... spooky Catalog: Meg is afraid to tell anyone when her dreams literally start coming true, but she needs help before she can learn to use her gift of seeing into the future. |
WAL |
Peppermints in the Parlor
(age 8-11) by Barbara Brooks Wallace family ... adventure ... mystery Emily Luccock is looking forward to living at Sugar Hill Hall....She remembers her aunt and uncle's grand old mansion well, with its enormous, elegant parlor, marble fireplace, and white china cups filled with hot chocolate. But this time things are different. Her aunt's once bright and lively home is now dead with silence. Evil lurks in every corner, and the dark, shadowed walls watch and whisper late at night. And no one ever speaks. Everything's changed at Sugar Hill Hall, and Emily knows something awful is happening there. What's become of Uncle Twice? Why is Aunt Twice a prisoner in her own home? Emily is desperate to uncover the truth. Time is running out, and she must find a way to save the people and home she cares so much about. |
WRI |
Christina's Ghost
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright mystery ... spooky Christina's summer in a spooky, isolated Victorian house with her grumpy uncle turns into a ghostly adventure. |
WRI |
Too Many Secrets
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright family ... mystery Nine-year-old Chad and his friend Jeannie try to discover who is breaking into their neighbor's house, while Chad also deals with his suspicions about why is father has been spending so much time away from home. |
HUT |
The Mona Lisa Mystery
(age 8-11) by Pat Hutchins the arts ... mystery Class 3 of Hampstead Primary School takes a school trip to Paris and lands right into the middle of a mystery. |
DEF |
The Light on Hogback Hill
(age 8-11) by Cynthia DeFelice friendship ... mystery When she investigates the mysterious light up on Hogback Hill, eleven-year-old Hadley finds and befriends a hunchbacked old woman with a tragic past. |
CLI |
I Hate Your Guts, Ben Brooster
(age 8-11) by Eth Clifford friendship ... mystery Catalog: When eleven-year-old Charlie's nine-year-old cousin Ben arrives from Japan with the wrong suitcase to spend a year with him, Charlie is irritated by Ben's genius intelligence, but comes to admire him as the two are drawn into a mystery concerning a handwritten will in Ben's suitcase. |
CLI |
Scared Silly
(age 8-11) by Eth Clifford humor ... mystery Catalog: Sensible eleven-year-old Mary Rose, constantly at odds with her imaginative seven-year-old sister Jo-Beth, finds that they need to work together when an unplanned visit to a strange shoe museum and house of magic illusions involves them in the disappearance of a Chinese emperor's shoes. |
CLI |
Help I'm a Prisoner in the Library
(age 8-11) by Eth Clifford humor ... mystery ... adventure Catalog: Two girls spend an adventurous night trapped inside the public library during a terrible blizzard. |
CLE |
Room One: a Mystery or Two
(age 8-11) by Andrew Clements friendship ... mystery ... school Catalog: A young boy living in rural western Nebraska investigates the connection between a mysterious face in the window of an empty house and the possible closing of the one-room school he attends. |
HOW |
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
(age 8-11) by James Howe spooky ... mystery ... humor Chester the cat is more than ever convinced that Bunnicula is a vampire when there is a harvest of white vegetables on the morning after the night that Bunnicula was probably wandering through the neighborhood. |
HOW |
Howliday Inn
(age 8-11) by James Howe humor ... mystery ... spooky Harold and Chester are sent to the Chateau Bow-Wow when the Monroe family goes on vacation. When a French poodle involved in a messy love triangle disappears, Chester and Harold enter the crime-detection business. sequel: Return to Howliday Inn |
HIL |
The McGurk Mystery Series (age 8-11) by E.W. Hildick realistic ... mystery The McGurk Detective Organization is on the case! It's up to Willie, Wanda, and Joey to step in, and when they do, you can be sure that trouble is just around the corner. title: The Case of the Bashful Bank Robber title: The Case of the Secret Scribbler title: The Case of the Treetop Treasure |
WRI |
The Ghost Comes Calling
(age 8-11) by Betty Ren Wright mystery ... spooky Catalog: While vacationing at a spooky cabin on Perch Lake, nine-year-old Chad tries to clear the name of Tim Tapper, the cabin's ghostly inhabitant, who was blamed for a truck accident in the 1930s. |
CHI |
Utterly Me, Clarice Bean
(age 8-11) by Lauren Child mystery ... school ... humor It's not easy to concentrate at school when mysterious things are happening all around you. In fact, Clarice Bean is starting to feel just like her favorite heroine: Ruby Redforr, schoolgirl detective. Clarice and her utterly best friend, Betty Moody, are planning to ace their book project about Ruby and win the class prize, until Betty disappears into thin air, and horrible teacher Mrs. Wilberton teams Clarice up with the naughtiest boy in school. Will her new partner ruin everything? Will Betty ever come back? And what on earth happened to the silver trophy everyone's hoping to win? sequel: Clarice Bean Spells Trouble sequel: Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now |
RUB |
Steal Away Home
(age 8-11) by Lois Ruby mystery ... historical When twelve-year-old Dana Shannon starts to strip away wallpaper in her family's old house, she's unprepared for the surprise that awaits her. A hidden room, containing a human skeleton! How did such a thing get there? And why was the tiny room sealed up? With the help of a diary found in the room, Dana learns her house was once a station on the Underground Railroad. The young woman whose remains Dana discovered was Lizbet Charles, a conductor and former slave. As the scene shifts between Dana's world and 1856, the story of the families that lived in the house unfolds. |
KLI |
Trial by (Jury) Journal
(age 8-11) by Kate Klise humor ... mystery ... letters/journal Get ready for a trial unlike any Tyle County has ever seen. Sixth-grader Perry Keet is missing, and Bob White, his co-worker at Tyle Park Zoo, will stand trial for the alleged murder. But Keet's disappearance is only the beginning of this legal thriller. |
HOW |
Bunnicula
(age 8-11) by Deborah and James Howe humor ... mystery This book is written by Harold. His fulltime occupation is dog. He lives with Mr. and Mrs. Monroe and their sons Toby and Pete. Also sharing the home are a cat named Chester and a rabbit named Bunnicula. It is because of Bunnicula that Harold turned to writing. Someone had to tell the full story of what happened in the Monroe household after the rabbit arrived. Was Bunnicula really a vampire? Only Bunnicula knows for sure. |
FLE |
Jim Ugly
(age 8-11) by Sid Fleischman adventure ... mystery ... animals ... humor Twelve-year-old Jake is thrown into an uneasy alliance with proud, one-man dog, Jim Ugly, when the dog's owner, Jake's father, suddenly disappears. Confident that Jim Ugly can pick up Jake's father's trail, boy and dog set out on the adventure of their lives. |
SOB |
The Encyclopedia Brown Series (age 8-11) by Donald Sobol mystery ... brilliant protagonist Whenever ten-year-old Leroy (nicknamed ``Encyclopedia'') Brown's father, Chief of Police of Idaville, had a difficult case, Encyclopedia always managed to solve it at the dinner table. So, he decided to open his own detective agency. title: Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of Pablo's Nose title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Slippery Salamander title: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Mysterious Handprints title: Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace title: Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day title: Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man title: Encyclopedia Brown Lends a Hand title: Encyclopedia Brown Carries On |
KLI |
Regarding the Fountain
(age 8-11) by Kate Klise mystery ... letters/journal ... humor ... school The Dry Creek Middle School drinking fountain has sprung a leak, so principal Walter Russ dashes off a request to Flowing Waters Fountains, Etc. We need a new drinking fountain. Please send a catalog. Designer Flo Waters responds: ``I'd be delighted...but please understand that all of my fountains are custom-made.'' Soon the fountain project takes on a life of its own, one chronicled in letters, postcards, memos, transcripts, and official documents. sequel: Regarding the Sink: Where, Oh Where, Did Waters Go? sequel: Regarding the Trees: a Splintered Saga Rooted in Secrets |
KLI |
Letters From Camp
(age 8-11) by Kate Klise mystery ... humor ... family ... letters/journal Sent to Camp Happy Harmony to learn how to get along with each other, pairs of brothers and sisters chronicle in letters home how they come to suspect the intentions of the singing family running the camp. |
HAL |
The Chet Gecko Mystery Series (age 8-11) by Bruce Hale humor ... mystery In these hilarious mysteries, Chet Gecko can't think of anything but eating and sleeping. Nevertheless, he's called upon to foil sinister plots, catch wiley thieves, and take on vicious monsters. title: The Big Nap: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: Farewell, My Lunchbag: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: The Hamster of the Baskervilles: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: Murder, My Tweet: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: The Mystery of Mr. Nice: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: This Gum for Hire: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko title: Trouble Is My Beeswax: From the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko |
ERI |
Hank the Cowdog Series (age 8-11) by John Erickson humor ... mystery In the first installment, Hank the Cowdog, head of ranch security, is framed for the murder of a chicken and becomes an outlaw with the coyotes. title: The Case of the Vanishing Fishhook |
CHR |
The Hockey Machine
(age 8-11) by Matt Christopher mystery ... survival ... adventure ... sports Catalog: Abducted by a "fan" and forced to become a member of a professional junior hockey team, thirteen-year-old star center Steve Crandall quickly realizes that he must play not only to win but to survive. |
BYA |
Hurculeah Jones Mysteries (age 8-11) by Betsy Cromer Byars mystery Supersleuth Hurculeah Jones and her friends crack one case after another. title: The Dark Stairs |