The Elevator Ghost

An eccentric babysitter has a knack for telling stories that are eerily well suited to her young charges. When Carolina Giddle moves into the Blatchford Arms, no one knows what to make of her sequin-sprinkled sneakers and her trinket-crusted car. But the parents are happy there’s a new babysitter around, and Carolina seems to have an uncanny ability to calm the most rambunctious child with her ghostly stories. Armed with unusual snacks (bone-shaped peppermints, granghoula bars and Rumpelstiltskin sandwiches), candles to set the mood, and her trusty sidekick — a tarantula named Chiquita, Carolina entertains the children with some good old-fashioned storytelling and, at the end, a great Halloween party. Governor General’s Award winner Glen Huser brings his quirky sense of humor and horror to some time-honored motifs. The artistic Lubinitsky girls find out that artists must be wary of the power of their own creations. Holy terror Angelo Bellini discovers that no one can throw a tantrum like a double-crossed pirate. The Hooper kids, including UFO junkie Benjamin, learn about some eerie goings-on in the New Mexico desert. Timid Hubert and Hetty Croop are practically afraid of their own shadows, until they hear the story of a boy who finds the perfect weapon for overcoming his fear of the dark. And Dwight and Dwayne Fergus, two would-be Freddy Kruegers, finally meet their match in Carolina, and her story of the footless skeleton. As for Carolina Giddle herself, it turns out that she has a timeworn connection to the Blatchford Arms, and to the ghost who still haunts the building — especially its old-fashioned elevator. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.

“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother. A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

Includes touching stories of treasured pets who return to comfort their grieving owners and warn them of imminent danger, fire, or intruders. This book also includes many more supernatural experiences and encounters with beloved pets that simply cannot be explained away.

A girl’s scary dream may come true in this “fast moving” story starring “a likable and believable heroine” (School Library Journal). Meg’s nightmare about a thin, gray-haired man who beckons her to follow him through a dark doorway will no doubt come true. That’s the way it is with all of her “real” dreams, the ones that her grandmother calls “a secret window into the future.” Meg suspects that her dream is about sixteen-year-old Caleb Larsen’s father, who died in a car crash after allegedly stealing $50,000 from a local bank. Could Mr. Larsen be trying to reach Caleb and his mother through Meg’s dreams? Is he trying to reveal the truth about what happened? As Meg’s nightmare begins to come true, she learns to cope with her own past as well as Caleb’s, and to see the present in a different, more positive light.

"That's the first step, you know. Admitting you're afraid. But when there's love, there can be no fear." Davia is afraid of many things, and everything about her elderly great-aunt Mari and her spooky-looking plantation home terrifies her. When she encounters Emilie, the tortured ghost of a well-to-do adolescent girl from the nineteenth century, she is even more frightened. Davia gradually begins to learn from Aunt Mari secrets about Emilie and about her own family's past—stories of premature endings and regrets. As Aunt Mari's health deteriorates, she and Davia become closer. Together, they hope to release Emilie's spirit from the mansion and the world of the living. Author Sheri Sinykin has written a provocative tale of a young girl who learns to accept uncertainty and to come to terms with her fears. Readers will be mesmerized by the intriguing supernatural mystery that lies at the heart of the story.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, you'll be spellbound by these nine supposedly true tales from the spirit world. Captivating creatures include the Horror of Berkeley Square, a demon that literally scares people to death, and White House specters of former presidents and first ladies. Suitable for readers of all ages. Narrated by Anthony Call (Star Trek, The Twilight Zone).

Review: "More than 100 scholars contributed to this carefully researched, well-organized, informative, and multi-disciplinary source on death studies. Volume 1, "The Presence of Death," examines the cultural, historical, and societal frameworks of death, such as the universal fear of death, spirituality and varioius religions, the legal definition of death, suicide, and capital punishment. Volume 2, "The Response to Death," covers such topics as rites and ceremonies, grief and bereavement, and legal matters after death."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

A supernatural tour of bookstores and libraries around the world, focusing on the ghost stories from haunted locations. Throughout history, books have inspired, informed, entertained, and enriched us. They have also kept us up through the night, thrilled us, and lured into their endless depths. Tomes of Terror is a celebration and an eerie look at the siren call of literature and the unexplained and fascinating stories associated with bookish locations around the world. Mark Leslie’s latest paranormal page-turner is a compendium of true stories of the supernatural in literary locales, complete with hair-raising first-person accounts. You may even recognize a spectre of your local library lurking in these true stories and photographs. If you have ever felt an indescribable presence hanging about a quiet bookshop, then you’ll enjoy these fascinating and haunting tales.