Allie Nichols, "Ghost Magnet," has only just finished sixth grade, but already she's grappled with her fair share of adventure: three ghosts have sought her help in less than two months. Now that summer has finally arrived, Allie is ready for a break. Too bad ghosts don't know about summer vacation. When a new spirit causes Allie to babble incomprehensibly at rehearsals for her town's first pageant, she and her best friend, Dub, know they have another ghostly mystery to solve. But why does the ghost seem so interested in the pageant, which portrays the relationship between the area's early European settlers and the local Seneca Indians? And could its manifestation have anything to do with the rich girl who just came to town with her family? In the fourth fascinating ghost book by Cynthia DeFelice, Allie and Dub uncover a centuries-old secret--the destruction of a Seneca village at Poplar Point--and come up with a plan to share it.

Allie Nichols, "Ghost Magnet," has only just finished sixth grade, but already she's grappled with her fair share of adventure: three ghosts have sought her help in less than two months. Now that summer has finally arrived, Allie is ready for a break. Too bad ghosts don't know about summer vacation. When a new spirit causes Allie to babble incomprehensibly at rehearsals for her town's first pageant, she and her best friend, Dub, know they have another ghostly mystery to solve. But why does the ghost seem so interested in the pageant, which portrays the relationship between the area's early European settlers and the local Seneca Indians? And could its manifestation have anything to do with the rich girl who just came to town with her family? In the fourth fascinating ghost book by Cynthia DeFelice, Allie and Dub uncover a centuries-old secret—the destruction of a Seneca village at Poplar Point—and come up with a plan to share it.

The third book about Allie Nichols, "ghost magnet" Allie Nichols has hardly laid the last spirit to rest when she's sure that another one is trying to reach her. But how can Allie help a ghost who won't speak? All she has to go on is a sound -- a sort of whine -- and a smell. At the same time, a strange boy joins her sixth-grade class. Allie doesn't understand why L. J. Cutler would start a new school at the end of the year, or why he's such a surly kid. She wants nothing to do with him. Then Mr. Henry, a teacher she loves, asks Allie to dog-sit Hoover, his golden retriever, while he's away and to befriend L.J. over the summer. She's delighted to spend time with Hoover, but she hardly looks forward to visiting L. J. Cutler -- until she discovers a connection between L.J., the ghost, and Hoover. This new book about Allie Nichols is another masterful novel of suspense by an author who consistently writes solid, entertaining stories.

From beloved author Cynthia DeFelice, The Ghost of Fossil Glen marks the first installment in this gripping middle grade series featuring sixth-grader and ghost magnet Allie Nichols, who solves mysteries with the help of her friend Dub. Allie Nichols knows she's being pursued by a ghost. But her friend Karen calls her a liar and doesn't want to hear "stuff like that." It is Allie's old pal Dub who listens eagerly as Allie tells him about a voice that guides her safely down a steep cliff side, the face in her mind's eye of a girl who begs "Help me," and a terrible nightmare in which that girl falls to her death. Who is the girl? Is she the ghost? And what does the ghost want from Allie? As Allie discovers that her role is to avenge a murder, she also learns something about friendship, false and true, in this chilling tale from bestselling author Cynthia DeFelice.

The second mystery solved by Allie Nichols, "ghost magnet", from author Cynthia DeFelice, author of The Ghost of Fossil Glen Just a few short weeks ago, sixth-grader Allie Nichols realized that she must be some kind of ghost magnet when she met the spirit of a murdered girl. Now, a new ghost has appeared to her, a handsome young man, and he's pointed her in the direction of her creepy cafeteria lady, Mrs. Hobbs. Allie has always suspected Mrs. Hobbs of something, and this just confirms it. So do the mysterious fires that keep breaking out every time Allie tries to investigate her. Surely Mrs. Hobbs isn't going to kill her. Or is she? “Another dangerously thrilling supernatural adventure . . . A diverting and suspenseful ghost story offering a likeable protagonist and a thrilling romantic spark.” —The Horn Book

In Bringing Ezra Back, Nathan Fowler returns to rescue his friend who helped him escape danger in this action-packed sequel to Cynthia DeFelice's beloved Weasel. September 1840 marks five months since twelve-year-old Nathan Fowler's life-threatening encounter with Weasel, the heartless man who stalked Nathan like a wild animal through the forest. Nathan hasn't been the same since, wary of every new person he meets - including the visiting peddler Orrin Beckwith. When Beckwith shows Nate and his family a handbill advertising a show with a "white Injun," a man without a tongue, Nathan is sure the man is his friend Ezra, who lost his tongue to Weasel's knife. Determined to save Ezra from this traveling show of "human oddities," Nathan sets out with Beckwith from Ohio to Pennsylvania. On the way, Nathan encounters more people than he's ever met before, and he begins to learn a thing or two about human nature. The biggest shock, however, is Ezra himself, and it will take more than Nathan bargained for to bring him back home.

Even in the brick and concrete heart of our cities, nature finds a way. Birds and mammals, insects, plants and trees – they all manage to thrive in the urban jungle, and Bob Gilbert is their champion and their chronicler. He explores the hidden wildlife of the inner city and its edgelands, finding unexpected beauty in the cracks and crannies, and uncovering the deep and essential relationship that exists between people and nature when they are bound together in such close proximity. Beginning from Poplar, the East End area in which he lives, Bob explores, in particular, our relationship with the trees that have helped shape London; from the original wildwood through to the street trees of today. He draws from history and natural history, poetry and painting, myth and magic, and a great deal of walking, observing and listening. Beautifully written, passionate and defiant, Ghost Trees tells the secrets and stories of the urban wildscape, of glorious nature resilient and resurgent on our very doorsteps.

A tribute to Florida, fishing, and family, Cynthia DeFelice's The Missing Manatee is "Sure to hook readers." -Booklist All Skeet Waters wants is to catch a big, beautiful tarpon on his fly rod - and to keep everything else in his life in Florida the way it's always been. But on his spring break from school, Skeet overhears his mother telling his father to move out permanently. Then, while riding in his boat to escape his parents' troubles, he discovers a manatee that's been shot in the head. Skeet puts aside his search for the manatee and its killer when Dirty Dan the Tarpon Man offers to take him out to catch his first tarpon on a fly. Because of Dan, Skeet begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding the manatee's apparent murder and his parents' dissolving marriage. Skeet discovers that life is a lot like tarpon fishing, in which you can't look just at the surface of the water - you have to look through it, at what lies beneath. The Missing Manatee was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery

After his family dies of consumption in 1849, twelve-year-old Lucas becomes a doctor's apprentice.

A teenager discovers racism and romance on his father's farm in author Cynthia DeFelice's Under the Same Sky. For his fourteenth birthday, Joe Pedersen wants a motorbike that costs nearly a thousand dollars. But his mom says the usual birthday gift is fifty dollars, and his dad wants Joe to earn the rest of the money himself and "find out what a real day's work feels like." Angry that his father doesn't think he's up to the job, Joe joins the Mexican laborers who come to his father's farm each summer. Manuel, the crew boss, is only sixteen, yet highly regarded by the other workers and the Pedersen family. Joe's resentment grows when his father treats Manuel as an equal. Compared with Manuel, Joe knows nothing about planting and hoeing cabbage and picking strawberries. But he toughs out the long, grueling days in the hot sun, determined not only to make money but to gain the respect of his stern, hardworking father. Joe soon learns about the problems and fears the Mexicans live with every day, and, before long, thanks to Manuel, his beautiful cousin Luisa, and the rest of the crew, Joe comes to see the world in a whole different way. In her sensitive novel, Cynthia DeFelice explores our dependency on migrant workers and simultaneous reluctance to let these people into our country and into our lives. Under the Same Sky is a Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.