Scary Stories for Older Kids

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Josh Allen

A collection of thirteen short stories showing how horribly wrong food, dating, jobs, and even a bed pillow can be.

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Josh Allen

A collection of thirteen short stories that reveals frightening secrets lurking in everyday objects.

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Megan Atwood

Eleven-year-old Stan cannot convince anyone that the garden gnomes he has always feared are connected to reports of missing persons and the strange sights and sounds he has observed.

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India Brown Hill

When eleven-year-old Iris sneaks out at night to make snow angels, she was not expecting to raise the ghost of Avery Moore, a girl her own age; but bringing to light the segregated and abandoned black cemetery seems like the perfect way to help Avery get the recognition she craves, and it will also be a good idea for the school project about the history of her small North Carolina town, where racial tensions are never far from the surface--only it seems that if Avery gets everything she wants Iris will join her as a ghost, best friends forever.

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Jen Campbell

Do you dare read this collection of terrifyingly gruesome tales? In this gripping volume, author Jen Campbell offers young readers an edgy, contemporary, and inclusive take on classic fairy tales, taking them back to their gory beginnings while updating them for a modern audience with queer and disabled characters and positive representation of disfigurement.

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Nate Cernosk

"A brother and sister are transported to a strange world based on the game hide-and-seek, where they are pursued by a cursed witch"-- Provided by publisher.

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Mike Ford

"When Mara hears about a new store called Frightville, she can't wait to check it out. On its shelves are strange and unusual gifts of all kinds. It's there that she comes face-to-face with Charlotte, a small figurine of a friendly-looking girl. Mara instantly feels that Charlotte is meant to live with her. But once Charlotte is in the dollhouse, strange things start to happen. There are odd noises in the night, and objects from Mara's room start to go missing. Is Mara imagining things, or is this doll actually haunted?"--Page [4] of cover.

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Daka Hermon

Something is wrong with twelve-year-old Zee, who has returned after a year's absence; nobody knows where he was or what happened to him, but now he is distracted and violent, freaking out when he sees his friends, Justin, Nia, and Lyric, playing an odd game of hide-and-seek, and talking wildly about some danger that is approaching--and soon his friends are pulled into a shadowy world ruled by a monstrous, shape-shifting Seeker, forced to play a terrifying game of hide-and-seek where they will have to confront their worst nightmares in order to find their way home.

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Hal Johnson

Profiles twenty-five monsters from mythology, folklore, and literature, from Medusa the gorgon and Polyphemus the cyclops to Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

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Chad Lucas

"Bones Malone feels like he can't do anything right in his new small town: He almost punched the son of the woman who babysits him and his brothers, he's one of the only Black kids in Langille, and now his baseball team...just lost their first game...And then he and his brothers have the same dream--one where they're running from some of their deepest fears, like a bear and an eerie cracked mirror that Bones would rather soon forget"-- Provided by publisher.

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Pat McKissack

A collection of ghost stories with African American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable.

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Tehlor Kay Mejia

In Silver Springs, Arizona, her mother's stories of the monstrous La Llorona are thrilling but unbelievable to science-loving Paola until she and her best friends Dante and Emma take a walk through a cactus field near the Gila River.

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Ellen Oh

"Harper doesn't trust her new home from the moment she steps inside, and the rumors are that the Raine family's new house is haunted. Harper isn't sure she believes those rumors, until her younger brother, Michael, starts acting strangely. The whole atmosphere gives Harper a sense of d#65533;j#65533; vu, but she can't remember why. She knows that the memories she's blocking will help make sense of her brother's behavior and the strange and threatening sensations she feels in this house, but will she be able to put the pieces together in time?"--Provided by publisher.

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Claribel Ortega

"For Lucely Luna, ghosts are more than just the family business. Shortly before Halloween, Lucely and her best friend, Syd, cast a spell that accidentally awakens malicious spirits, wreaking havoc throughout St. Augustine. Together, they must join forces with Syd's witch grandmother, Babette, and her tubby tabby, Chunk, to fight the haunting head-on and reverse the curse to save the town and Lucely's firefly spirits before it's too late."--Jacket flap.

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Dan Poblocki

"Simon is a liar. Stella and Alex know this about their new stepbrother, so they aren't bothered by his stories about their new house. But Simon is getting harder and harder to ignore, as his cries for attention become increasingly dangerous and difficult to explain."-- Provided by publisher.

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James Preller

Sucked into a strange video game where he finds himself caught in a snowstorm, young Aaron ventures into the nearby woods only to hear scary howls and discover that he is trapped.

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Ronald L. Smith

After something strange happens during a camping trip, twelve-year-old alien-obsessed Simon suspects he has been abducted, but was it real or just his overactive imagination?

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J. A. White

Alex's original hair-raising tales are the only thing keeping the witch Natacha happy, but soon he'll run out of pages to read from and be trapped forever. He's loved scary stories his whole life, and he knows most don't have a happily ever after. Now that Alex is trapped in a true terrifying tale, he's desperate for a different ending--and a way out of this twisted place. This modern spin on the Scheherazade story is perfect for fans of Coraline and A Tale Dark and Grimm. With interwoven tips on writing with suspense, adding in plot twists, hooks, interior logic, and dealing with writer's block, this is the ideal book for budding writers and all readers of delightfully just-dark-enough tales.

Summaries provided by DPL's catalog unless otherwise noted. Click on each title to view more information.

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