Dead Boy

Fans of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book will embrace this darkly funny novel! Crow isn't like the other kids. He stinks. He’s got maggots. His body parts fall off at inopportune moments. (His mom always sews them back on, though.) And he hasn’t been able to sleep in years. Not since waking up from death. But worse than the maggots is how lonely Crow feels. When Melody Plympton moves in next door, Crow can’t resist the chance to finally make a friend. With Melody around he may even have a shot at getting his life back from the mysterious wish-granting creature living in the park. But first there are tests to pass. And it will mean risking the only friend he’s had in years. Debut author Laurel Gale’s story about friendship fulfilled may be the most moving—and most macabre—yet. Praise for Dead Boy “A stinky, creepy tale for anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider.” —Kirkus Reviews “Gale takes readers on a dark and surprisingly funny journey. . . . A great recommendation to middle grade fans of dark humor.” —School Library Journal

In the desert town of Richland, Washington, there stands a giant sycamore tree. Horribly mutated by nuclear waste, it feeds on the life energy of boys that it snags with its living roots. And when Teddy Matthews moves to town, the tree trains its sights on its next victim. From the start, Teddy knows something is very wrong with Richland-every kid he meets disappears before his eyes. A trip to the cemetery confirms that these boys are actually dead and trying to lure him to the tree. But that knowledge is no help when Teddy is swept into the tree's world, a dark version of Richland from which there is no escape . . .

Where We See Tragedy, God Sees Possibility . . . Few American epics of tragedy, intrigue, friendship, and faith will entertain and challenge the soul like the narrative inspired by the events in the real life of David Ring--a boy literally born dead who survives with sobering consequences. Living with the harsh realities of cerebral palsy, Ring faces impossible odds yet stumbles into an improbable life of inspiration and influence in the small, unassuming town of Liberty, Missouri, in the 1960s. As a teenage boy, Ring finds himself tragically orphaned and being shuffled about to various homes. Along this journey, he faces secret, unspeakable atrocities that eventually plunge him into the depths of depression and attempted suicide. But amid the harsh troubles of life, he encounters another boy his age named David, the son of a local pastor. Their unlikely friendship begins on the rocks, but eventually develops into something extraordinary and unique that alters the trajectory of both of their lives--and the whole town of Liberty--forever.

Perched somewhere between the now and nevermore the DEAD BOY DETECTIVES will take on any and all mysteries including their own untimely deaths!

Thirteen-year-old October Schwartz is new in town; she spends her free time in the Sticksville Cemetery and it isn't long before she befriends the ghosts of five dead teenagers, each from a different era of the past. They form the Dead Kid Detective Agency, a group committed to solving Sticksville's most mysterious mysteries.

Dead Boy’s Game and The Broken Vow is the first book of Magical Rome Universe. Late at night in Magical Rome, an elderly druid plunges two baby boys into a cauldron bubbling with a mysterious potion. One boy is alive; the other, dead. Instantly, a spectacular magic begins inside the cauldron — life diffuses from the living boy to the dead. Thirty-seven years pass … and the two boys, oblivious of their magical past, grow up believing that their beloved Rome will outlive time itself. But when the ancient powers commanding their bygone adventure come calling, carnage rains upon the great city. And our heroes’ lives intertwine once again. Will the two men defend the city of their birth or hurl Rome into a never-ending abyss? Thirty-seven years after a feat of impossible magic, a deadly game begins in Magical Rome.

A decade dead, Jacob Campbell is a preservationist, providing a kind of taxidermy to keep his clients looking lifelike for as long as the forces of entropy will allow. But in the Land of the Dead, where the currency is time itself and there is little for corpses to do but drink, thieve, and gamble eternity away, Jacob abandons his home and his fortune for an opportunity to meet the man who cheated the rules of life and death entirely. According to legend, the Living Man is the only adventurer to ever cross into the underworld without dying first. It's rumored he met his end somewhere in the labyrinth of pubs beneath Dead City's streets, disappearing without a trace. Now Jacob's vow to find the Living Man and follow him back to the land of the living sends him on a perilous journey through an underworld where the only certainty is decay. Accompanying him are the boy Remington, an innocent with mysterious powers over the bones of the dead, and the hanged man Leopold l'Eclair, a flamboyant rogue whose criminal ambitions spark the undesired attention of the shadowy ruler known as the Magnate. An ambitious debut that mingles the fantastic with the philosophical, Dead Boys twists the well-worn epic quest into a compelling, one-of-a-kind work of weird fiction that transcends genre, recalling the novels of China Miéville and Neil Gaiman.

'If they ever come here,' his father had warned, 'drop everything. Just run and hide!' And now they were here. God's Freedom Army or whatever their name was. Bringers of blood and suffering. Rebels! Killers! Every one of them. Hundreds of thousands of children are abducted from their homes and used as boy soldiers. This is the story of one them. 12-year-old Sam is ripped from his village in Uganda and forced to march with rebel soldiers to their training camp in southern Sudan. A weapon is thrust into his innocent young hands and his life becomes that of enemies and battles, violence and death, as he's turned into a soldier. With no escape, danger is around every corner, the threat of death is everywhere. But there are ways to survive. Sam becomes friends with a fellow boy soldier and together their dreams of escape become a strength. Together, they are ready to fight.