Children Literature Mysteries

When the Mystery Writers of America bestowed a Special Edgar Award on Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown series, its reputation as a classic of children’s literature was assured. This fun read finds 10-year-old Leroy Brown (known to the people of his town as Encyclopedia Brown) honing his impressive detective skills.

The evening begins like many others. Lionel falls asleep while listening to his uncle tell stories. Ryan stays up reading and listening to music. Vicki goes out smoking pot with her friends. And Judd, tired of being told what to do, takes his father’s credit card and heads to the airport in search of freedom. But in one shocking moment, everything changes. All over the world, millions of people suddenly vanish. Driverless cars crash on the highways, and planes fall through the sky without pilots.

Having garnered both Young Readers’ Choice and Special Edgar Awards, Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories have been children’s classics for decades. In this installment, the 10-year-old detective uses his vast knowledge and probing questions to expose a muscle-bound scam, a crooked protection racket, a circus frame-up, and other baffling mysteries.

The three friends trapped in their Minecraft game have never been closer to escaping the Overworld, and they can't wait to return home after being trapped on the server for so long. But then a vicious horde of creepers attacks, delaying their escape. Soon the gang learns that there's a new villain behind the attack: a griefer so twisted that he'd rather stay trapped in the Overworld than live a mundane life in the real world - and he has no qualms about keeping every other player trapped on the server with him.

From the Civil War-era south, to 1950's New York, to the present day's gritty cities and seemingly innocuous suburbs, the 18 stories in this anthology edited by the award-winning mystery writer Harlan Coben chart the complications - always surprising, sometimes deadly - that arise between lovers, dear friends, and even complete strangers coming together for a single, shocking encounter.

Gameknight999, a real-life Minecraft user trapped inside the game he loves to play, and his friend Crafter have transported to a new server. Malacoda is the King of the Nether, a terrible ghast that wants to destroy all of Minecraft with his massive army of blazes, magma cubes, zombie pigmen, and wither skeletons. Knowing the lives of all those within Minecraft - as well as those in the physical world - are depending on them, Gameknight and Crafter will need to search the land to recruit an NPC army.

Viva Durant, New Orleans’ youngest detective, is on a quest to solve a jazzy mystery. Every summer, Viva heads to New Orleans to spend time with her loving but stern Grandmother, known as Gram. After Gram reads Viva an article in the local paper about a missing treasure related to the world-famous song, “Miss Mary Mack”, Viva heads through the Crescent City on an epic adventure to track down the treasure. The clues lead Viva to the French Quarter, a jazz club, a creepy cemetery, and even the circus.

After finding a compass and clues left by Kallista's father, Leo Babbage, Trenton and Kallista head west aboard their homemade mechanical dragon to search for the missing inventor. The two teenagers hope to find answers about their mountain city of Cove, but instead, they find only a blackened forest, ruined buildings, and a small underground city. Almost immediately, Trenton and Kallista get caught up in a civil war between a clan of scavengers called Whipjacks and the Order of the Beast.

Meg Cabot is the New York Times best-selling author of The Princess Diaries series. Susannah Simon is a teenager who can see ghosts. As a bridge between the living and the dead, she gets called on to help ghosts take care of unfinished business. After she and her mother move from New York City to sunny California, Suze meets the sexiest boy she's ever seen, too bad he's a ghost, too.

Now that she’s returned to New Orleans for Thanksgiving break, Viva is charged with figuring out the truth behind a mysterious bout of illness traced back to a local creole restaurant called Madame Bouchard’s. Were customers poisoned on purpose, or was it a simple cooking mistake? And who could be behind the chaos? Viva only has a week to solve the culinary mystery, and to do so, she’ll have to contend with a longtime rivalry, rumors of voodoo magic, and Thanksgiving dinner with her extended family!

Lena, Flint and their unique family have discovered what created their extrasensory abilities and hidden memories. When a new opportunity arises to give them answers to a past they thought was lost, an entire world is reopened. Now, stronger than they were before, they venture to the heart of what created them knowing they may not all return.

The adventures of Donald J. Sobol’s amateur detective Encyclopedia Brown have been delighting puzzle and mystery lovers for over four decades - earning a special Edgar Award in the process. Here are 10 more devilishly clever noggin scratchers for young listeners to try and solve. Join Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown as he keeps the streets of tiny Idaville free from petty crooks, ruffians, and altogether no-goodniks - all for 25 cents a day, plus expenses.

A virus has infected Arlington, Virginia, home of NERDS headquarters, and it's much worse than your run-of-the-mill flu. Instead of coughing and sneezing, the victims of this voracious virus are transformed into superintelligent criminal masterminds. Soon nearly everyone - including some of the NERDS team - is plotting to take over the world. And who's to blame for this nasty infection? None other than former NERDS teammate Heathcliff Hodges. With more people breaking out into evil cackles every day, it's up to Flinch, the hyperactive superspy with a sweet tooth, to stop the virus.

Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.

Three complete stories in one collection! This volume includes The Mystery of the Secret Message, The Firehouse Mystery, and The Mystery in San Francisco.

It was summer in the mountains when five small children vanished from their nursery school picnic. The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air.... Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one. All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.

New York Times best-selling author Meg Cabot fills each adventure in the Mediator series with suspense and humor. Suze Simon is a liaison between ghosts and the living. But this teenager is no hand-holder, she's tough on the spirits who need her help. When the ghost of a murdered woman wakes Suze up one night with an troublesome request, the 16-year-old just wants to get rid of her.

Vivian Gandalon is a teen-aged werewolf with problems. Her father, the pack leader, was killed in a fire, and so the pack is in disarray. The young male members of the squabbling pack howl for her, but still she feels alienated and alone. To be more than human is a lonely thing. Vivian longs to have friends and fit in at school. She yearns to escape her legacy of violence and forbidden appetites, but the beast within her longs for something elementally deep and rich. She glories in her ability to change from woman to wolf.

This entertaining and humorous chapter book will feature animals who can perform amazing acts like riding motocross, foretelling the weather, and playing a guitar. These stories will enchant listeners and empower them to devour the more text-heavy "grown up" style of the book, while still keeping the story easily digestible for a hesitant listener.

Wicca has changed Morgan’s life. She’s lost old friends, made new ones, and discovered her heritage. She also found love and betrayal. But there’s so much more to learn. She knows Wicca can be used for good or for evil. The hard part is knowing which is which.