Mary Downing Hahn

Publisher Annotation: The author of wildly popular ghost stories, Mary Downing Hahn has created a group of tales for fans of her "scary but not too scary" books. Even the stories without actual ghosts are spooky. Each tale turns something ordinary-a pigeon, a white dress, a stranger on the bus, a puppet-into a sinister link to to the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behavior in the present can lead to serious...

"Eleven-year-old Brendan Doyle doesn't get along with his foster mother, he's failing fifth grade, and he's bullied mercilessly by a band of boys in his class. Then Brendan meets two potential friends--an eccentric old man and a girl from summer school--and he sees that there may be hope for him after all"--

With their mother dead and their home burned, a thirteen-year-old boy and his little sister set out across Virginia in search of relatives during the final days of the Civil War.

In 1945, Gordy's grandmother takes him and his family into her North Carolina home after his abusive father is arrested, and he just begins to respond to his grandmother's loving discipline when his father returns.

In 1887 twelve-year-old Eliza, disguised as a boy and traveling towards Colorado in search of her missing father, falls in with a Gentleman Outlaw and joins him in his illegal schemes.

"Best-selling and award-winning authors take on the brave new world of middle school in this remarkable collection, brimming with humor and heart. Subjects range from peer pressure, homework, family issues, and cultural barriers to the unexpected saving graces of music, art, friendship, and reading. This engaging anthology, filled with texts, emails, formal letters, stories in verse, first-person narratives, and even a short graphic novel, shines...