Scary Science Fiction

It takes a special person to end up in detention on the last day of school. It takes a REALLY special person to accidentally burn down the school yard while chasing a fire-breathing chipmunk. But nothing about Valentina Salazar has ever been “normal.” The Salazars are protectors, tasked with rescuing the magical creatures who sometimes wander into our world, from grumpy unicorns to chupacabras...to the occasional fire-breathing chipmunk.

Monster hunting isn’t as easy as it looks. And Jack should know. Because an ogre has just appeared in his garden and tried to eat his aunt. (She was the winner of the World’s Worst Aunt competition, but that’s not the point.) After (sort of accidentally) defeating the ogre, Jack finds himself apprenticed to a grumpy 200-year-old monster hunter called Stoop and heading off to Cornwall, where more ogres are causing havoc.

Adam says he can’t remember where he was for the two months he went missing in a Florida swamp. That’s not true. He does remember. The truth: He was driving with his parents, and the car crashed when his father swerved to avoid colliding with a giant Sasquatch-like creature standing in the highway. Haunted by his parents’ disappearance and hounded for claiming to have seen Bigfoot, Adam sets off into the deadly wilderness on a hunt for answers as to what really happened that night.

There is a famous cave located just outside of Spooksville. A lot of stories surround the dark place: scary ones as well as exciting ones. Adam decides to explore the cave with his friends, Watch, Sally, and Cindy. But the moment they go into the cave, the entrance closes behind them. They are trapped. In the dark. They walk deeper into the cave, frantically searching for a way out. The batteries in their flashlights begin to run low. Then they realize something is following them. Something that has been in the cave for a long time. Something big, black…and hungry.

For Rebecca Chin, babysitting has always been fun. But one night, a thunderstorm knocks the power out while she’s watching baby Kyle, and creepy things begin to happen in the house. A locked window opens by itself, mossy handprints streak the wall, and the baby begins acting strange. When she finds out that no one else in town was affected by the storm, Rebecca begins to wonder if something supernatural is going on. Fellow sitters Tanya, Clio, and Maggie help Rebecca unravel the mystery, only to discover something unbelievable.

Elizabeth's power grows stronger by the day, and the clouds over Captive's Sound grow darker. And soon a terrible flood will drown everything and everyone in its path. In order to save her family, her friends, and her Steadfast, Mateo, Nadia swore herself to the One Beneath. Her only chance to learn how to defeat him and Elizabeth is to pretend to be a loyal student of dark magic - but to do so, she must abandon Mateo and the world she knows.

A town is overrun by road weenies - a.k.a. joggers - who never smile. A girl thinks she's too old for Halloween...until she finds a special pair of gloves. A boy takes a shortcut to an unexpected place. A mummy takes his revenge, one little piece at a time.... These 35 tales ranging from the silly and offbeat to flat-out horrifying are just right for listening alone in the dark.

Out walking alone one rainy night, Lucy becomes convinced that someone - or something - is following her. Spooked, she ducks into a cemetery to try and lose her stalker. Panicking in the darkness, she slips and stumbles into an open grave - only to discover she is not alone in there…. Lucy manages to escape, but she doesn't get away unscathed. She begins having terrifying visions and dreams - and she still can't shake the feeling of an unseen presence, always watching, waiting…. Who was the girl in the grave? And what has she done to Lucy?

When a sea monster arrives at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Beasts, Ulf the werewolf must risk his life to save it. But the evil Baron Marackai is back - and beasts are on the menu! Can Ulf stop the cruel Beast Feast before he ends up as a tasty dessert himself? The future of the RSPCB depends on it....

Kara and Taff know that only Grace Stone has the power to reverse her Last Spell on their father and that in order to save him, they have to rescue their foe from the Well of Witches first. Forgiving Grace should be the hardest part of their journey...but soon the children are confronted by creatures called the Faceless, mysteries as old as magic, and an ancient secret that threatens their very lives. Back in the World, a war against magic is brewing that endangers everyone they care about.

Every full moon, a mysterious ship is seen off the coast of Dull-on-Sea. Then, the next day, gold and jewelry are missing from homes, shops, and museums all over town. Matilda needs the Jolley-Rogers' help to investigate. Can Matilda and Jim Lad retrieve the stolen booty from the mysterious ship before the moon fades? Or will they end up stuck on board with a crew of ghostly pirates forever?

When Hadley's parents leave on a cruise and then are reported lost at sea, her perfect world is turned upside down. In a flash, she is whisked away to a new life of drudgery at Grimm House where she waits on not one but two persnickety old aunts. As she grudgingly fulfills their commands of cooking, cleaning, and even after-dinner-dancing, she comes to suspect the aunts are really witches who are scheming to take the thing she loves best. With only her wits and the help of some unlikely new friends, Hadley makes a plan to escape Grimm House and find her way home before it's too late.

The sea is calm, the air is fresh, and the bobbing boat feels like a living creature underneath Johnny Dixon’s feet. Johnny hardly ever sees his father, who trains Air Force pilots in Colorado, and their annual Florida fishing trip is the highlight of his year. They’re on their way back to Duston Heights, Massachusetts, where Johnny lives with his grandparents, when a visit to a fortune-teller puts a terrible fright into Johnny. Inside the seer’s crystal ball, he sees a grinning ghost who cackles out a fearsome message: “The universe shall be mine!”

To earn his Ghosthunting Diploma, Tom's got to nab a deadly 12th Messenger. But while on the hunt in the haunted town of Bogpool, Tom stumbles into the mucked-up lair of a mud-loving minotaur who has an entire army of ghosts at his command. Suddenly there's a lot more at stake than Tom's graduation. This raging beast is dead-set on doomsday. And that's no bull!

One of the best ways to turn an average camping trip or sleepover with friends into an all-out adventure is to spark your kid’s curiosity with a nail-biting and edge-of-your-seat tale of terror. Whatever the case may be, these captivating and mind-bending stories are sure to capture their attention and leave them begging for more. On top of that, all of the characters are easily relatable and will even empower your children toward a deeper understanding of some powerful moral life lessons.

In their second adventure, Jack, his best friend Nancy and Stoop (a grumpy, 200-year-old monster hunter) head up to Scotland after reports of some mysterious monsters causing chaos in an ancient abbey. And maybe they’ll even get a glimpse of Nessie! But when they get there they find some obstacles in their path – whether that’s the fog goblins, disgruntled ghosts, some very odd loch monsters and even a rival monster hunting agency.

Finn McAllister was a normal middle school nerd - now he’s a ghost with a big mystery to solve. One minute, Finn was biking home from school, and the next, he was run off the road by a maniac in a big van. Now, he's a ghost. He can do lots of fun things, like try every ice cream flavor in the store, sneak up on people, and play as many video games as he wants. Finn even has a new ghost friend, Isabella, to show him the ropes. But he also has a lot of big questions, like: Who wanted him dead? And can he stop the maniac from striking again?

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.

Sixth-grader Nina Tanleven knows that old Mrs. Watson’s spike-roofed, dark green house is haunted. She feels the ghost as soon as she walks toward the faded porch. But when Nina climbs the stairs to look for an antique wardrobe in the tower room, she has to wonder what else the spooky mansion is hiding. Soon Nina is in the company of a ghostly crying child, a long-dead artist, and a gruesome, hypnotic painting. To break the dark spell surrounding the house, she will have to join forces with these shadowy spirits.

Twelve-year-old twins Colm and Mal might look identical, but they’re different in just about every other way. The one thing they can agree on is that neither brother wants to move to Chicago for a fresh start with their mom two years after their dad’s death. The boys soon discover that their new apartment building, Brunhild Tower, is full of strange quirks: a mysterious Princess who warns them not to wander the building at midday, eerie sounds coming from the walls, and an elevator that’s missing a button for the thirteenth floor.