The Halloween season is the perfect time to read spooky stories. Nights are getting colder and longer and mentions of ghosts seem to be everywhere. Ghost stories are often associated with campfires, marshmallows, and bumps in the night. But sometimes, a ghost story is best read alone. This book list includes twelve riveting ghost stories, all written for readers ages 13-18. Varying in length, style, and level of fright, teen readers who enjoy ghost stories are sure to find a new favorite on this list. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Seventeen-year-old Denise Farber, her mom, and her stepfather are moving back to New Orleans, into the Argonne house, which is over 100 years old and showing its age, but her mother plans to turn into a bed-and-breakfast. But, old houses have histories, sometimes ghosts, and a mysterious old comic book that Denise finds in the attic may hold the answer to a crime and the terrifying things that keep happening in what she thinks of as the “Agony” house.
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father’s work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. But, everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.
Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school. However, falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.
Sixteen-year-old Cordelia and her family move into the house they just inherited in Pennsylvania, a former insane asylum the locals call Hysteria Hall. Unfortunately, the house does not want defiant girls like Delia, so it kills her. As she wanders the house, meeting the other ghosts and learning the dark secrets of the Hall, she realizes that she has to find a way to save her sister, parents, and perhaps herself.
Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due. But when she meets Tark, she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.
I am Alfonso Jones
By: Tony Medina
Illustrated by: Stacey Robinson and John Jennings
The ghost of fifteen-year-old Alfonso Jones travels in a New York subway car full of the living and the dead, watching his family and friends fight for justice after he is killed by an off-duty police officer while buying a suit in a Midtown department store.
In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.
There are three rules in the neighborhood: Don’t cry; Don’t snitch; Get revenge. Will takes his dead brother Shawn’s gun and gets in the elevator on the 7th floor. As the elevator stops on each floor, someone connected to Shawn gets on. Someone already dead. Dead by teenage gun violence. And each has something to share with Will.
Teens Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna follow all the rules, but when their summoning circle is broken, the vengeful spirit of Bloody Mary slips through. As the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are changed forever.
As fifteen-year-old Pemba adjusts to leaving her Brooklyn, New York, home for small-town Connecticut, a Black history researcher helps her understand the paranormal experiences drawing her into the life of a mulatto girl who was once a slave in her house.
Teenage Bina runs away to New York City’s Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history and dark secrets, where she is drawn to her mysterious downstairs neighbor Monet.
Seventeen-year-old Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat, able to see ghosts in color and capture them on film. But when a routine hunt goes awry, Micheline is infected with a curse known as a soulchain, and if she is unable to exorcise the entity in seven days, she will be destroyed, body and soul.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards commonly referred to as the Eisner Award, are considered the “Oscars” of the comics world. Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, the awards are given out in more than two dozen categories during a ceremony each year at Comic-Con International: San Diego.
Tea dragon husbandry is a dying art, just like Greta’s family business, and Greta is determined to take part in keeping the creatures alive. She rescues a tea dragon and is invited to learn more about the magical creature by its owner, Hesekiel.
Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17), Best Continuing Series, Best Publication for Teens, Best Writer (for Liu), Best Painter and Best Cover Artist (both for Takeda)
Maika, Kippa, and Ren journey to Thyria in search of answers to her past and discover a new, terrible, threat. Set in a steampunk 1900s Asia.
While there have been many graphic novels published this year, no graphic novel collection is complete without these graphic novel series. We consider them signature series in the juvenile graphic novel collection. They helped graphic novels gain popularity and even come out of the regular fiction shelves to create a new library collection in many libraries. Whether you decide to shelve graphic novels in a separate collection or within your fiction or nonfiction shelves, our top 10 series are essential for any library serving young graphic novel lovers (ages 7 to 11).
Amulet (Amulet series)
By: Kazu Kibuishi Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather after the death of their father. The house proves to be dangerous after a sinister creature lures the kids’ mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals.
Babymouse, Queen of the World (Babymouse Series)
By: Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm An imaginative mouse dreams of being queen of the world but will settle for an invitation to the most popular girl’s slumber party.
Bone, Out from Boneville (Bone series)
By: Jeff Smith After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins – Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone – are separated and lost in a vast, uncharted desert. One by one, they find their way into a deep, forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. Eventually, the cousins are reunited at a farmstead run by tough Gran’Ma Ben and her spirited granddaughter, Thorn. But little do the Bones know, there are dark forces conspiring against them and their adventures are only just beginning!
Dog Man (Dog Man series)
By: Dav Pilkey Dog Man is a loveable crimefighter who always has a smile on his face. With the head of a dog and the body of a man, he also has a serious mission to fulfill- to keep his community safe from villains and a trouble-making cat named Petey.
Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea! (Narwhal and Jelly series)
By: Ben Clanton Cheerful Narwhal likes to make friends with other sea creatures, eat waffles, and have parties. Most young readers will know that narwhals don’t really eat waffles, but that is okay. Narwhal makes friends with Jelly, a jellyfish, and in other stories they form their own pod with Shark, Turtle, Blowfish, and Octopus.
Owly (Owly series)
By: Andy Runton Owly and Wormy enjoy birdwatching and befriend Tiny and Angel, two hummingbirds who come to drink nectar from the flowers that Wormy has planted.
Science Comics: Dogs- from predator to protector (Science Comics series)
By: Andy Hirsch Every volume of Science Comics offers a complete introduction to a particular topic – dinosaurs, coral reefs, the solar system, volcanoes, bats, flying machines, and more. Various authors contribute to the series. While this is a newer series, it provides a unique way to read nonfiction.
Smile
By: Raina Telgemeier Anyone who has gone through middle school can attest that this is a most complicated time because of both physical and emotional changes. Being an adolescent is just plain hard and this is true even when everything goes right. However, in this autobiographical story there is one massive issue that Raina must deal with that her friends do not and that is losing her two front teeth due to an accident. The follow-up novel is titled Sisters.
Squish, Super Amoeba (Squish series)
By: Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm Squish, a meek amoeba who loves the comic book exploits of his favorite hero, “Super Amoeba,” tries to emulate him when his best friend is threatened by a bully.
On July 20, 2018, the 30th Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were presented in San Diego. These awards are given out during a special convention that continues to grow each year and has sparked smaller conventions throughout the country. The convention is Comic Con International, and the Eisner Award is considered the Oscars for comic books. This book convention centers around the ever expanding and popular comic book culture. However, the convention is not just a comic book shopping spree, it is totally devoted to everything associated with a comic book- the movies, the toys, the total brand.
While you may be thinking comic books are only about superheroes, the industry is much more diverse. The stories are filled with protagonists and antagonists fighting for happiness or survival, sometimes both. The artistry in each story panel lends itself to the story just as much as the words. The reader uses visual clues and text in tandem to follow the story. It truly takes magnificent work of our brains to read stories in comic book format. Yet, for many years schools did not look at the comic book format as a conventional way to teach students to read.
Enter Maus by Art Spiegelman. Published in 1986, the author tells of his family’s survival of the Holocaust in comic book format. There are no superheroes in this novel, only allegorical storytelling of the horror of the Holocaust, with Jewish mice and Nazi cats. When the book won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992, everything changed for the comic book format novels. They fully embraced a more accurate name that had been stated since the 1970s by Will Eisner and would spark a new genre that would spread its wings to reach many readers- Graphic Novels.
Other books, such as Persepolis and American Born Chinese would follow in the 2000s. These are complete stories told through text and paneled illustrations, which have storylines in realism rather than imaginary superheroes. Their stories give children a look at other cultures and who we are as a society.
Soon after, graphic novels would not only find their way into libraries but also into the classroom. A Common Core Standard for English Language Arts Grade 5-7, children are expected to “analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).” (Common Core Standards, 2013)
Regardless of the Common Core Standard, there are still some educator and parental holdouts when it comes to valuing graphic novels in a child’s reading growth. Graphic novels are an uncomplicated way to expand vocabulary through word-to-picture correlation. They have more complex plots and complete storylines than usually associated with thin comic books which produce installment issues. Graphic novels provide just as much exposure to plot, sequence of events, and character study as other novels. They can be serious in nature, like Maus and other YA graphic novels, or humorous in nature, like the Lunch Lady series and other juvenile graphic novels. Furthermore, a fast-paced novel, which graphic novels usually are, is a known plus for getting reluctant or struggling readers to read.
Graphic novel publishing continues to expand each year. Many popular series novels such as The Baby-Sitter’s Club, The Boxcar Children, and Artemis Fowl are rebooting themselves in the graphic novel format. This move may possibly bring around the graphic novel naysayers. It is hard to believe there are still naysayers after the years of positive effects from graphic novels on young readers, especially in our current climate of digital visual storytelling.
