Don’t let the title fool you – girls will also love this book! 

This is an exciting collection of short stories that will make you bite your nails until the very end. Creepy but funny. Scary but not too scary. There are tales about ghosts, pirates, wishes, a terrible private investigator, and more. 


My favorite story was "Ghost Vision Goggles"; a story about boy who sends away for weird items from the back of old comics. When he receives goggles that let him see ghosts, he gets more than he expected.

The best part of this book? When I held it up in my classroom the first student to jump up and grab it was a girl. Oh yeah, I love that. I don't expect this book to stay on my shelf for long stretches at a time.

The stories are by authors my students already love: Anthony Horowitz, Margaret Peterson Haddix, James Patterson and more!

(Middle grades: 3-6)

Check out the Guys Read website for more information about this book and other reading ideas with boys in mind. (but girls will like them too!)

Author: M.P. Kozlowsky
What would you sacrifice to make your fondest wishes come true?

Juniper's family used to be close and loving. Juniper would write elaborate plays and her actor parents would make them come to life. Her parents longed for fame and fortune, though. When they finally "made it" in the movies, their lives changed drastically. Suddenly, Juniper's parents have no time for her, and don't even seem to really care about her anymore. When she meets a new neighbor named Giles with similar parental problems, they decide to investigate.

This isn't just a tale of family changes, though. Juniper suspects something sinister has happened to her formerly loving parents. When she follows them out into the woods one dark and dreary night, her suspicions are confirmed. Can she withstand the temptations of her own deepest desires long enough to rescue her parents?

Juniper Berry is a wonderfully creepy tale, but not terrifying. It's a great choice for kids who want to dive into a book that will make them shiver. Students who are overly sensitive (as some of my students tend to be) may want to wait until they are slightly older. It's a great example of a strong female lead who will also appeal to the boys in the room!

Note: I won a copy of this book from Walden Pond Press. Check them out on Twitter! (@WaldenPondPress) 

I had two books to recommend this week, in anticipation of Halloween. In honor of All Hallows Read, I offered this one up to my older, more mature elementary students.

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There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”

So begins the creepy tale of Nobody Owens, an infant who escapes the murder of his family and is raised by an unlikely assortment of ghosts and supernatural beings in the local graveyard. This book is not for the faint of heart. Bod, as he is called by his friends, faces dangers and adventures in his graveyard home. If he leaves, however, he’ll be at the mercy the man who assassinated his family, since we learn that Bod was the real target. We follow his childhood and adolescence through a series of chapters that are short stories in style. Each story is fascinating, and Gaiman’s writing style is intense and captivating.

I read this book after several of my strong readers recommended it to me. They commented that it was “scary, but everything turns out okay”.

Recommended for:
5th to 8th graders who enjoy creepy tales, though older students and adults would also enjoy this book (I certainly loved it, as it was very well written!)

Cautions:
The events in his life (especially at the beginning) are frightening at times, and may scare younger or more sensitive readers. In spite of that, the book is not overly graphic in its depiction of those events.

Check out more information at Neil Gaiman's websitehttp://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/The+Graveyard+Book/