All 15-year-old Kelly McAllister wants to do after high school graduation is attend art school. Academic work isn’t important to her. When she studies at the library with her friends, she sometimes talks so much the librarian kicks her out. After her teacher pressures her to start working on her current events paper, Kelly decides she has to take the assignment seriously. The only trouble is she can’t think of a topic-until she discovers Mr. Weems, a homeless Vietnam vet who spends his days in the library. But writing about his plight isn’t so easy. First she must get to know him. Mary Downing Hahn creates a stirring portrait of a teenager discovering that complex problems require more than simple solutions. Narrator Julie Dretzin fully captures all the joy and despair swirling through this thought-provoking young adult novel.

Just before summer begins, thirteen-year-old Ali finds an old photograph. She recognizes the two children in it; one’s her mother, the other her aunt Dulcie–but who is the third person, the one who’s been torn out of the picture? Ali will have two months to figure it out, since she’s spending the summer with her aunt and her cousin in the same house her mom and aunt used to visit when they were kids.

Then Ali meets Sissy. Sissy is mean, spiteful, and determined to ruin Ali’s summer. Sissy also has a secret. Could it have something to do with the old photo? Ali is dying to find out–though, if she’s not careful, that may be exactly what happens to her.

When her adorable baby brother is replaced by an ugly, ill-tempered changeling, Mollie is determined to find the so-called Kinde Folke who took baby Thomas, return the changeling she calls Guest, and make them give Thomas back. Natural and magical obstacles and her own reckless temperament make her journey arduous and full of dangers, and a plot rich in surprises and twists makes this book a must-listen for Mary Downing Hahn’s fans.

Against the ominous backdrop of the influenza epidemic of 1918, Elsie, the class tattletale, liar, and thief, claims the new girl at school, Annie, as her best friend. But Annie soon makes other friends as well and finds herself joining them in teasing and tormenting Elsie, who later succumbs to the epidemic and dies. Elsie is not absent from school long though. She soon returns there as a ghost, ready to reclaim Annie’s friendship and to punish all the girls who bullied her.

Margaret and her best friend Elizabeth both have brothers fighting the war against Hitler and, like everyone else they know, they are filled with feelings of patriotism. But the girls are also involved in their own personal war at home. Gordy Smith, the worst bully in the sixth grade, teases and torments them, and Margaret is scared to death of him. But when Gordy and his pals Toad and Doug grow bolder than ever, Margaret and Elizabeth come up with a daring plan to get even. That’s when the girls discover a shocking secret about Gordy that turns their lives upside down and draws them into a startling confrontation with family, friends, and their own strongly held ideas.

While camping near Indian Creek, Matt and his best friend, Parker, get up early to see if they can spot a blue heron. Instead, they find the body of a dead man floating in the clear water. Parker is sure that George Evans, the smooth-talking local antiques dealer, must somehow be connected to the dead man. Matt isn’t so sure–but then, on Halloween night, while snooping around Evans’s antique shop, the boys make another shocking discovery that puts their own lives in danger. There are murderous grownups that would do anything to keep what the boys found in the shop a secret, and now they’re after Parker and Matt. Are the boys clever enough to get away? Or will they, too, end up like the dead man in Indian Creek?

Ashley Cummings is happy to leave Baltimore and the sad memories it holds for her and her widowed mom. But there’s something strange about their new place. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Ashley is sure she hears a child crying out in the darkness. When she and her friend, Kristi, find a doll in the garden, Ashley wants to keep it for herself. But an eerie encounter makes it clear that the doll’s rightful owner wants it back…even though she died seven years ago.

Jules’s family moves into an old abandoned house. Her parents love it, but she’s frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. When she sees a pale face in an upstairs window, she can’t stop wondering about the eerie presence on the top floor-in a room with a locked door. Could it be someone who lived in the house a century earlier? Her fear replaced by fascination, Jules becomes determined to make contact with the mysterious figure and to unlock the door. Past and present intersect as she and her ghostly friend discover-and change-the fate of the family who lived in the house all those many years ago.

This collection of tales is for fans of ghost-story writer Mary Downing Hahn’s “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 the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behavior in the present can lead to serious trouble. All the stories have a young person as their central character, so all will resonate easily with young listeners who enjoy the eerie, the creepy, and the otherworldly. In a concluding note, the author talks about how she came to write ghost stories.

From master of middle grade horror Mary Downing Hahn, a new thriller about bravery, unexpected friendship, and sinister cats that will captivate readers with its chilling mix of mystery and magic.

Zoey loves spending the summer with her Aunt Alice, and her aunt’s new house is the perfect place to cozy up with a good book. But she’s unnerved by the overgrown forest next door, which is creepy even in the daytime and full of eerie sounds at night.

Worse, there are rumors in town of a dark force in those woods. And Zoey can’t deny that the wild black cats who live there seem to be watching her.

When she encounters a mean old woman who claims to be their owner, Zoey realizes there’s more to the cats than meets the eye. But little does she know that the closer she comes to discovering their secret, the more danger she’s in . . .

Thirteen-year-old Daniel Anderson doesn’t believe Brody Mason’s crazy stories about the ghost witch who lives up on Brewster’s Hill with Bloody Bones, her man-eating razorback hog. He figures Brody’s probably just trying to scare him since he’s the new kid…a “stuck-up snot” from Connecticut. But Daniel’s seven-year-old sister Erica has become more and more withdrawn, talking to her lookalike doll. When she disappears into the woods one day, he knows something is terribly wrong. Did the witch strike? Has Erica been “took?”

A chilling murder mystery lies at the heart of this page-turning thriller about a missing teacher, small town secrets, and turbulent tween friendships from master of middle grade horror Mary Downing Hahn.

When best friends Abbi and Skylar witness a clandestine meeting between a mysterious woman and someone in a dark van, they’re thrilled. Finally, a mystery to spice up the summer!

Who could these people be? Why are they meeting? Are they spies? Criminals? The two girls are determined to find out. But then a local woman goes missing and is found dead in the woods. And Abbi and Skylar realize that their detective work could hold the keys to solving her murder. Suddenly, sleuthing isn’t so fun anymore.

As tensions rise and their friendship frays, the girls find themselves in increasing danger, and must choose between keeping a secret or exposing a life-altering truth.