Ghosts are the subject haunting this fourth "Own the Night" inspired booklist of the summer. Here you will find novels, short story collections, graphic novels, and nonfiction. There are stories about teens who see ghosts and stories about ghosts who may try to influence you for good or evil. Need more ghostly reading suggestions? You'll find them in the NoveList database here:
NoveList Recommended Reads: Ghosts. Ever felt a spine tingling chill in a library? well, George Eberhart, senior editor of
American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association; has made
lists of haunted libraries around the world for the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog. See also:
Tales from a Haunted Library: Spirits Float Among the Stacks at this Connecticut Library, by Ann Paietta, 2012.
Fiction
The Afterlife, by Gary Soto, 2003. A senior at East Fresno High School lives on as a ghost after his brutal
murder in the restroom of a club where he had gone to dance.
Anya's Ghost, by Vera Brosgol, 2011.
book trailer Embarrassed by her family and self-conscious
about her body, Anya has given up on fitting in at school, but falling down a
well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.
Being Dead, by Vivian Vande Velde, 2001. Seven supernatural stories, all having something to do with death.
Bliss, by Lauren Myracle, 2008. Having grown up in a California commune, Bliss sees her aloof
grandmother's Atlanta world as a foreign country, but she is determined
to be nice as a freshman at an elite high school, which makes her the
perfect target for Sandy, a girl obsessed with the occult.
The Body Finder, by Kimberly Derting, 2011. Book 1 in series. High school junior Violet uses her uncanny ability to sense murderers
and their victims to try to stop a serial killer who is terrorizing her
town, and although her best friend and would-be boyfriend Jay promises
to keep her safe, she becomes a target.
Campfire Chillers, edited by E.M. Freeman, 1994. Gathers nine frightening stories by Edgar Allan Poe, E. F. Benson, Manley Wade Wellman, Ambrose Bierce, and H. G. Wells.
A Certain Slant of Light, by Laura Whitcomb, 2005. After benignly haunting a series of people for 130 years, Helen meets a
teenage boy who can see her and together they unlock the mysteries of
their pasts.
Days of Little Texas, by R.A. Nelson, 2009. 16-year-old Ronald Earl King, who has been a charismatic evangelist
since he was ten years old, is about to preach at a huge revival
meeting on the grounds of
an old plantation, where, with confusing help from the ghost of
a girl he could not heal, he becomes engaged in an epic battle between good and evil.
Dead Connection, by Charlie Price, 2006. A loner who communes with the dead in the town cemetery hears the voice of a murdered cheerleader and tries to convince the adults that he knows what happened to her.
Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn, 2007. 13-year-old Ali spends the summer with her aunt and cousin, and stumbles upon a secret that her mother
and aunt have been hiding for over thirty years.
Friends With Boys, by Faith Erin Hicks, 2012.
book trailer After an idyllic childhood of homeschooling with
her mother and three older brothers, Maggie enrolls in public high school, where interacting with
her peers is complicated by the melancholy ghost that has followed her throughout her entire life.
Ghost Flower, by Michele Jaffe, 2012. Drawing the attention of two wealthy teens who say she resembles their
missing cousin Aurora, runaway Eve is drawn into a scheme to win the
lost girl's inheritance.
Ghostgirl, by Tonya Hurley, 2008. First book in series.
After dying, high school senior Charlotte
Usher is as invisible to nearly everyone as she always felt, but despite
what she learns in a sort of alternative high school for dead teens,
she clings to life while seeking a way to go to the Fall Ball with the
boy of her dreams.
The Ghosts of Kerfol, by Deborah Noyes, 2008. Over the centuries, the inhabitants of author Edith Wharton's fictional
mansion, Kerfol, are haunted by the ghosts of dead dogs, fractured
relationships, and the bitter taste of revenge.
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, 2008. Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.
The House of Dead Maids, by Clare B. Dunkle,
2010. Eleven-year-old Tabby, who would later serve as housekeeper for
thirty years to the Brönte sisters, is taken from an orphanage to a
ghost-filled house, where she and a wild young boy are needed for a
pagan ritual.
Into the Dark, by Nicholas Wilde, 1987. Matt, a 12-year-old boy, blind since birth, on a seashore holiday from London, is excited when he meets Roly, a
local boy in an old graveyard. With Roly
acting as his eyes, they explore the salt marshes and a
boarded-up mansion. Gradually Matt comes to understand that Roly is the ghost of a boy who drowned in the sea a century before.
The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson,2011. First book in series. Rory, of
Boueuxlieu, Louisiana, is spending a year at a London boarding school when she witnesses a murder by a Jack the
Ripper copycat and becomes involved with the
very unusual investigation.
On the Day I Died: Stories From the Grave, by Candace Fleming, 2012. In a lonely Illinois cemetery one cold October night, teen ghosts
recount the stories of their deaths in different time periods, from 1870
to the present, to 16-year-old Mike, who unknowingly picked up a
phantom hitchhiker.
The Other Side of Dark, by Sarah Smith, 2010. Since losing both of her parents, 15-year-old
Katie can see and talk to ghosts, which makes her a loner until fellow
student Law sees her drawing of a historic house and together they seek a treasure rumored to be hidden there by illegal slave-traders. Awards: Agatha Awards: Best Young Adult Mystery. Massachusetts Book Awards:Young Adult Literature Award.
Picture the Dead, by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, 2010. After Jennie Lovell's fiancée, Will, is killed during the Civil War, she
forms an alliance with a spirit photographer and uses her ability to
talk to the dead to investigate the secrets Will was hiding and how he
really died.
The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, 2013. Follows three young operatives of a Psychic Detection Agency as they battle an epidemic of ghosts in London.
Story Time, by Edward Bloor, 2004. George and Kate are promised the best education but instead face
obsessed administrators, endless tests, and evil spirits when they are
transferred to Whittaker Magnet School.
Texas Gothic, by Rosemary Clement-Moore, 2011. 17-year-old Amy Goodnight has long been the one who makes her
family of witches seem somewhat normal to others, but while spending a
summer with her sister caring for their aunt's farm, Amy becomes the
center of weirdness when she becomes tied to a powerful ghost. Award: YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults: 2012.
Tighter, by Adele Griffin, 2011. Based on Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw," tells the story of Jamie
Atkinson's summer spent as a nanny in a small Rhode Island beach town,
where she begins to fear that the estate may be haunted, especially
after she learns of two deaths that occurred there the previous summer.
The Unquiet, by Jeannine Garsee, 2012. When 16-year-old Rinn, who has bipolar disorder, and her mother
move back to her mother's hometown in Ohio and settle in a house where
the previous owner hanged herself, Rinn discovers that both the town and
her mother have some uncomfortable secrets in their past and that the
ghost that supposedly haunts the school seems to be out for revenge.
Nonfiction
(browse call # 133.1)
