Are you in the mood for some spine-tingling middle-grade stories? Here are six recent mystery and ghost novels that are sure to increase your Halloween spirit(s). See also Candace Fleming’s Crash from Outer Space: Unraveling the Mystery of Flying Saucers, Alien Beings, and Roswell for a nonfiction look at the supernatural.

Shadow Grave
by Marina Cohen
Intermediate    Roaring Brook    288 pp.    g
5/22    978-1-250-78300-4    $16.99
e-book ed.  978-1-250-78301-1    $9.99

As his younger sister, Lola, loves to point out, twelve-year-old Arlo is afraid of everything. He has significant reasons to be anxious: his mother has just recovered from cancer; his father (divorced, with a new family) hardly seems to notice him and Lola; and now he, Lola, and their mom are stuck in a weird old-fashioned town after a car accident. Livermore is quaint, with a tiny schoolhouse and open hearths, but behind the vintage allure lies a sinister thread that Arlo picks up on right away. Why is there no cell service? Why don’t the townsfolk use electricity? And why do they keep whispering behind closed doors? Arlo must convince Lola and Mom to leave Livermore before it’s too late and they learn, perhaps fatally, what nameless horror the town had awakened over a century ago. Equal parts spooky and charming, the story offers plenty of suspense and relatable ties to real-world difficulties. Arlo, Lola, and Mom form a heartwarming triangle of familial loyalty and dogged optimism. Even if readers have worked out the mystery before the story’s denouement, the promise of Arlo’s growth into bravery will keep pages turning until the very end. SARAH BERMAN

The Midnight Children
by Dan Gemeinhart
Intermediate, Middle School    Holt    352 pp.    g
8/22    978-1-250-19672-9    $16.99
e-book ed.  978-1-250-19673-6    $9.99

In the dead of night, seven children arrive in Slaughterville, a typically sleepy town supported by a single industry—the local slaughterhouse. Only Ravani, a friendless, bullied boy, witnesses their stealthy arrival. Who are these strangers and why are they so secretive? Guiding readers through this mystery, the omniscient narrator frequently employs direct address to emphasize various plot points and to ruminate on characters and their motivations. As literary strangers often do, this group of children will initiate change, but the question is: for whom? Numerous characters—from Ravani to the mysterious children, from Ravani’s bully to the factory owner—are disposed (either knowingly or unknowingly) to transform lives. Sly dark humor nods at the slaughterhouse: Ravani lives on Offal Street; the factory owner is Mr. Skinister; and, as the narrator informs us, “Most of the town’s visitors were cows and none of them were particularly happy to be there. They were even less happy when they left.” Short chapters create a strong trajectory for the plot’s arc, while the narrator’s calm tone reassures readers that although danger lurks at several points, the conclusion will indeed be gratifying, perhaps even for the cows. BETTY CARTER

Omega Morales and the Legend of La Lechuza
by Laekan Zea Kemp; illus. by Vanessa Morales
Intermediate, Middle School    Little, Brown    336 pp.    g
9/22    978-0-316-30416-0    $16.99
e-book ed.  978-0-316-30448-1    $9.99

Omega Morales comes from a family of empaths, enchanters who can read and influence the emotions of people and objects around them. Omega struggles to control her power, which causes her to feel like an outcast within her family. Her inability to manage her magic also means that she cannot control how much the feelings of others affect her, forcing her to isolate herself from her emotion-filled classmates. When the trees talk of a scary being haunting the city, Omega goes in search of answers and discovers the legend of La Lechuza, a terrifying witch with the power to transform herself into an owl. Could La Lechuza be responsible for the violent occurrences happening throughout the city? Omega, cousin Carlitos, and best friend Clau (a young ghost who has refused to pass on to the afterlife) work to unravel the mystery before it’s too late. Kemp’s middle-grade debut, with Morales’s black-and-white art interspersed, is an entertaining, sometimes frightening, and thought-provoking story that comments on generational trauma, bullying, friendship, and family. Readers will relate to Omega’s struggles to trust herself in difficult situations. S. R. TOLIVER

Lily and the Night Creatures
by Nick Lake; illus. by Emily Gravett
Intermediate    Simon    240 pp.    g
8/22    978-1-5344-9461-9    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-5344-9463-3    $10.99

Part animal fantasy, part family drama, part horror story, this novel set in an English village opens outside a house at sunset with an anxious conversation among Mole, Crow, Mouse, and Snake: will the girl come? Will she win? The girl, Lily, is already having a tough day. After enduring dialysis and an iron injection, she must spend the night at her grandmother’s while her parents are at the hospital having a new baby, a sibling Lily does not want. She also has left Willo, her favorite stuffed animal, behind. She sneaks out of her grandmother’s house to go back home (it’s nearby) and retrieve Willo; when she arrives, however, she finds not only the motley crew of talking animals but also her house possessed, Coraline-style, by two evil coal-eyed parent replicas. Told in third person from Lily’s perspective, the story captures the frustration of struggling with a chronic illness as well as the character’s inner determination. While she attempts to save her family, the animals never coddle her and need as many assists from her as she does from them—and they also provide helpful comic relief during the scarier parts. Gravett’s eerie illustrations capture the mood of the text and use visual cues, such as black backgrounds with white text when Lily is in the dark, to build tension. Full of twists, the story divulges key interpersonal details and magical elements with smart pacing, frequently allowing readers to reconsider everything from new perspectives. JULIE ROACH

Let the Monster Out
by Chad Lucas
Intermediate, Middle School    Amulet/Abrams    320 pp.    g
5/22    978-1-4197-5126-4    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-4197-5126-4    $15.54

When Bones Malone and his family move to the town of Langille, the transition is anything but smooth. He’s the new kid on the baseball team with a strong arm but no control. He’s one of the only Black kids in town, and he knows that his race affects how others treat him. Bones’s teammate Kyle Specks (who is white) has lived in Langille his entire life, but he still feels like an outcast. Kyle always says the wrong thing and can’t figure out social situations. The two outsiders join forces when they notice Langille’s adults acting weirdly and suspect their strange behavior has something to do with the new tech company in town. Together, Bones and Kyle must stop the shady corporation before their own worst nightmares come true. Blending mystery, horror, and science fiction to explore concepts of fear, belonging, and forgiveness, this is highly accomplished middle-grade speculative fiction, perfect for readers who enjoy darker, layered books such as Ness’s A Monster Calls (rev. 9/11). S. R. TOLIVER

Ghostcloud
by Michael Mann
Intermediate    Peachtree    320 pp.    g
9/22    978-1-68263-518-6    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-68263-519-3    $10.99

In a post-apocalyptic alternate London, twelve-year-old Luke Smith-Sharma is one of the kidnapped children enslaved as a coal shoveler under the Battersea Power Station. When Luke and new-girl Jess accidentally drop coal dust on their cruel supervisor, Tabatha, they are locked up in an experimental incinerator room. There Luke makes an odd discovery: a girl he rescues from the incinerator turns out to be a “ghostcloud” who can take him riding through the sky on water vapor and who shows him some exterior vents on the power station they can use to escape. Luke and Jess begin secretly exploring the vents and uncover Tabatha’s unsavory experiments in her hidden lab—experiments that tie together ghosts, electricity, and the smog that shows up when children are kidnapped. The Dickensian hardships endured by the protagonists of this mystery-adventure will appeal to young readers who enjoy a little ostentatious exaggerated suffering in their fiction; so, too, will the characters’ resourcefulness as they follow the clues and form alliances to combat the evil they uncover. The mild supernatural elements integrate smoothly into the alternate setting, while the idea of “halves” (Luke is “Half-Indian. Half-detective. Half-ghost”) adds a somewhat wistful theme of identity to the rollicking action. ANITA L. BURKAM

From the October 2022 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.