Adam Slater - The Shadowing:Skinned - Published by Egmont - 1 August 2011 - Age 9 - 12
Her pointed teeth do not gleam; they are black with age and the bloodstains of her countless victims. She looks up at the human child - surely meant to be in bed and asleep at this time of night. Some things don't change. Every hundred years the gateway opens between their world and ours. A human coven has joined forces with the dark beings of the Netherworld. A flesh-eating witch is on the loose. Evil is growing. And Callum is caught in the middle. The Shadowing has begun..
Katy Towell - Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow Published by Knopf - 23 August 2011 - Age 9-12
Twelve years ago, for 12 days straight, the town of Widowsbury suffered a terrible storm, which tore open a gate through which escaped all sorts of foul, rotten things. Strange things and strange people were no longer welcomed in Widowsbury, for one could never be sure of what secrets waited under the surface . . .
Adelaide Foss, Maggie Borland, and Beatrice Alfred are known by their classmates at Widowsbury's Madame Gertrude's School for Girls as "scary children." Unfairly targeted because of their peculiarities—Adelaide has an uncanny resemblance to a werewolf, Maggie is abnormally strong, and Beatrice claims to be able to see ghosts—the girls spend a good deal of time isolated in the school's inhospitable library facing detention. But when a number of people mysteriously begin to disappear in Widowsbury, the girls work together, along with Steffen Weller, son of the cook at Rudyard School for Boys, to find out who is behind the abductions. Will they be able to save Widowsbury from a 12-year-old curse?
Dan Poblocki - The Nightmarys - Published by Yearlin - 9 August 2011 - Age 9 - 12
Timothy doesn’t really know what to make of Abigail, the new girl in his seventh-grade class. After she is humiliated before her classmates, bad things start happening. Timothy’s best friend sees the clawed monster from his favorite video game at the bottom of a pool. Their teacher begins to get paranoid about the creepy specimen jars surrounding his classroom. But it’s not Abigail’s fault; in fact, she is seeing visions of the Nightmarys—two sinister little girls who beckon her to come play with them. It’s a marvelously disorienting setup, and Poblocki has a knack for cornering his characters in the most unlikely of vulnerable places: a laundry room, a changing room, a hospital bed. As the plot begins to hammer sense into the horrific happenings—it all has to do with a mystical jawbone, an insane professor, and a demon called the Daughter of Chaos—the scares get bigger, though often less impactful. More than anything, this is a mystery, complete with clues and secret codes, and Poblocki’s deft handling of the multiple threads makes this a devilish delight.
Jane Kelley - The Girl Behind the Glass - Published by Random House - 9 August 2011 - Age 9 -12
The house on Hemlock Road used to be someone's home. Until something happened. Something that even after 80 years, can never be forgotten or forgiven . . . .
Eleven-year-old twins Hannah and Anna agree about everything—especially that they don't want to move to the creepy old house on Hemlock Road. But as soon as they move into the house, the twins start disagreeing for the first time in their lives. In fact, it's almost as though something or someone is trying to drive them apart. While Anna settles in, Hannah can't ignore the strange things that keep happening on Hemlock Road. Why does she sense things that no one else in the family does? Like when the hemlock branch outside waves shush, shush. Or at night, if she listens hard enough, it's almost as though someone is trying to talk to her. Someone no one else can hear. Someone angry enough to want revenge. Hannah, are you listening? Is the house haunted? Is Hannah crazy? Or does something in the house want her as a best friend—forever?
