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Halloween Books: Get into the Spirit with Teen Novels

It’s officially spooky season! Get into the Halloween spirit with our lists of bewitching tales for all ages. This week, check out our list of scary stories for teens!

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls
By Cherie Dimaline
280 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265639 | Tundra Books
Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother’s grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.

Harvest House
By Cynthia Leitich Smith
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536218602 | Candlewick
Halloween is near, and Hughie Wolfe is volunteering at a new rural attraction: Harvest House. He’s excited to take part in the fun, spooky show – until he learns that an actor playing the vengeful spirit of an “Indian maiden,” a ghost inspired by local legend, will headline. Folklore aside, unusual things have been happening at night at the crossroads near Harvest House. A creepy man is stalking teenage girls and young women, particularly Indigenous women; dogs are fretful and on edge; and wild animals are behaving strangely. While Hughie weighs how and when to speak up about the bigoted legend, he and his friends begin to investigate the crossroads and whether it might be haunted after all. As Moon rises on All Hallow’s Eve, will they be able to protect themselves and their community? Gripping and evocative, Harvest House showcases a versatile storyteller at her spooky, unsettling best.

Holly Horror
By Michelle Jabès Corpora
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593386217 | Penguin Workshop
A beloved classic reimagined with a dark twist.
After her parents’ painful divorce, Evie Archer hopes that moving to Ravenglass, Massachusetts, is the fresh start that her family needs. But Evie quickly realizes that her new home – known by locals as the Horror House – carries its own dark past after learning about Holly Hobbie, who mysteriously vanished in her bedroom one night. But traces of Holly linger in the Horror House and slowly begin to take over Evie’s life. A strange shadow follows her everywhere she goes, and Evie starts to lose sight of what’s real and what isn’t the more she learns about The Lost Girl. Can Evie find out what happened the night of Holly’s disappearance? Or is history doomed to repeat itself in the Horror House?

House of Ash and Bone
By Joel A. Sutherland
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880968 | Tundra Books
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them – then consume them – in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
By Shea Ernshaw
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368069601 | Disney Press
Jack and Sally are “truly meant to be” . . . or are they? Sally Skellington is the official, newly-minted Pumpkin Queen after a whirlwind courtship with her true love, Jack, who Sally adores with every inch of her fabric seams – if only she could say the same for her new role as Queen of Halloween Town. Cast into the spotlight and tasked with all sorts of queenly duties, Sally can’t help but wonder if all she’s done is trade her captivity under Dr. Finkelstein for a different cage. But when Sally and Zero accidentally uncover a long-hidden doorway to an ancient realm called Dream Town, she’ll unknowingly set into motion a chain of sinister events that put her future as Pumpkin Queen, and the future of Halloween Town itself, into jeopardy. Can Sally discover what it means to be true to herself and save the town she’s learned to call home, or will her future turn into her worst . . . well, nightmare?

Monstrous
By Jessica Lewis
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593434819 | Delacorte Press
Don’t go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all – never, ever, go into Red Wood. These are the rules Latavia’s aunt gives her when Latavia arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Though, weird as they are, living in Sanctum does have its pros. Mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop. But Sanctum is turning out to be as strange as the rules – and the longer Latavia’s in town, the more suspicious she is that the people there are hiding something. And the more clear it is that she’s an outsider. Everyone’s nice enough, but they seem determined to prove everything is normal. But it’s not. Because there’s something in Red Wood that the towns’ people are hiding. And if Latavia doesn’t follow her aunt’s rules, she might not be able to leave Sanctum. Ever . . .

Saint Juniper’s Folly
By Alex Crespo
304 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781682635773 | Peachtree Teen
For Jaime, returning to the Vermont town of Saint Juniper means returning to a past he’s spent eight years trying to forget. After shuttling between foster homes, he hopes to make something out of this fresh start. But every gossip in town already knows his business, and with reminders of his past everywhere, he seeks out solitude into the nearby woods – Saint Juniper’s Folly – and does not return. For Theo, Saint Juniper means being stuck. He knows there’s more out there, but he’s scared to go find it. His senior year is going to be like all the rest, dull and claustrophobic. That is until he wanders into the Folly and stumbles on a haunted house with an acerbic yet handsome boy trapped – as in physically trapped – inside. For Taylor, Saint Juniper is a mystery. She tries to practice the magic her dad banned from the house after her mom, an accomplished witch, suddenly died. But without someone to guide her, she’s floundering. Then a wide-eyed teenager barges into her life, rambling about a haunted house and a trapped boy. He needs a witch. The Folly and its ghosts will draw these three teenagers together. But can they each face their demons to forge a bond strong enough to escape the Folly’s shadows?

Someone Is Always Watching
By Kelley Armstrong
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270923 | Tundra Books
Blythe and her friends – Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya – have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives. The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened. Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?

The Last Girls Standing
By Jennifer Dugan
320 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593532072 | G.P. Putnam’s Sons BFYR
Sloan and Cherry. Cherry and Sloan. They met only a few days before masked men with machetes attacked the summer camp where they worked, a massacre that left the rest of their fellow counselors dead. Now, months later, the two are inseparable, their traumatic experience bonding them in ways no one else can understand. But as new evidence comes to light and Sloan learns more about the motives behind the ritual killing that brought them together, she begins to suspect that her girlfriend may be more than just a survivor – she may actually have been a part of it. Cherry tries to reassure her, but Sloan only becomes more distraught. Is this gaslighting or reality? Is Cherry a victim or a perpetrator? Is Sloan confused, or is she seeing things clearly for the very first time? Against all odds, Sloan survived that hot summer night. But will she survive what comes next?

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
By Andrew Joseph White
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593527702 | Peachtree Teen
Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all. London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing. After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness – a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness – and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world – if the school doesn’t break him first.

There’s No Way I’d Die First
By Lisa Springer
304 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593643174 | Delacorte Press
Seventeen-year-old Noelle Layne knows horror. Every trope, every warning sign, every survival tactic. She even leads a successful movie club dedicated to the genre. Who better to throw the ultimate, most exclusive Halloween party on all of Long Island? With some of the top influencers in her school on the guest list, including gorgeous singer-songwriter Archer Mitchell, her popularity is bound to spike. She could really use the social boost for an upcoming brand expansion. Nothing is going to ruin this party. Except . . . maybe the low budget It clown she hired for a stirring round of tag. He axes one of her classmates. From the looks of his devilish grin and bag full of killer tricks, he’s just getting started. A murderous clown is out for blood, but Noelle has been waiting her entire life to prove that she’s a Final Girl.

Together We Rot
By Skyla Arndt
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593526279 | Viking BFYR
Wil Greene’s mom has been missing for over a year, and the police are ready to call the case closed – they claim she skipped town and you can’t find a woman who wants to disappear. But she knows her mom wouldn’t just leave . . . and she knows the family of her former best friend, Elwood Clarke, has something to do with it. Elwood has been counting down the days until his 18th birthday – in dread. It marks leaving school and joining his pastor father in dedicating his life to their congregation, the Garden of Adam. But when he comes home after one night of after a final goodbye with his friends, already self-flagellating for the sins of drinking and disobeying his father, he discovers his path is not as virtuous as he thought. He’s not his father’s successor, but his sacrifice. For the woods he’s grown up with are thirsty, and must be paid in blood. Now on the run from a family that wants him dead, he turns to the only one who will believe him: Wil. Together, they form a reluctant partnership; she’ll help him hide if he helps her find evidence that his family killed her mother. But in the end they dig up more secrets than they bargained for, unraveling decades of dark cult dealings in their town, led by the Clarke family. And there’s a reason they need Elwood’s blood for their satanic rituals. Something inhuman is growing inside of him. Everywhere he goes, the plants come alive and the forest calls to him, and Wil isn’t sure if she can save the boy she can’t help but love.

Your Lonely Nights Are Over
By Adam Sass
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593526583 | Viking BFYR
Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable. From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving senior year, when Mr. Sandman, a famous, never-caught serial killer emerges from a long retirement – and his hunting ground is their school Queer Club. As evidence and bodies begin piling up and suspicion points at Dearie and Cole, they will need to do whatever it takes to unmask the real killer before they and the rest of Queer Club are taken down. But they’re not getting away from the killer without a fight. Along the way, they must confront dark truths hidden beneath the surface of their small desert community. When the world is stacked against them and every flop they know is a suspect, can Dearie and Cole stop Mr. Sandman’s rampage? Or will their lonely nights soon be over . . .

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. These titles are now available in stores and online!

How to Decorate a Christmas Tree
By Vikki VanSickle
Illustrated by Miki Sato
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735268586 | Tundra Books
A little girl shares the steps for the perfect tree trimming – a holiday picture book for fans of Pick a Pine Tree and The Little Christmas Tree. In this charming Christmas tale, readers will follow along with the main character as she shares all the things that go into decorating a tree:
Lights
Ornaments
Popcorn
Hot chocolate
Taffy the cat
Memories
And, most importantly, family!
With stunning three-dimensional art by Miki Sato and a delightful story by wordsmith Vikki VanSickle, including a twist ending, this book will quickly become a Christmas tree decorating tradition of its own.

Pine Island Visitors
By Polly Horvath
288 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774881859 | Puffin Canada
By Newbery Honor author Polly Horvath, comes a sequel to her popular middle-grade novel Pine Island Home about orphaned sisters who find a way to make a new family.
Fiona, Marlin, Natasha and Charlie McCready have been adopted by their unlikely guardian, Al, and finally settled into their new home on Pine Island in British Columbia. Fiona is struggling under the weight of trying to keep everything together, not to mention worrying about expenses, while Marlin tries to adjust to her new high school and faces rejections for her cookbook, Thirty Meals a Twelve-Year-Old Could Make and Did!. Natasha is still keeping to herself, but a new interest in the violin reveals hidden talents, while Charlie is dreaming of what kind of dog she would like. It’s been an adjustment, but they are loving being with each other and having Al next door. Then they receive a letter from Mrs. Weatherspoon, who took care of them after their parents died, and she is coming to visit for three months – an inordinate amount of time for a houseguest. Accommodating a fifth person in the tiny house is hard enough, but to their horror, Mrs. Weatherspoon arrives with a companion: her childhood friend, Jo. Jo has opinions about everything – what they should eat, how they should behave – and she doesn’t hesitate to express them. And sweet Mrs. Weatherspoon seems to have fallen under her spell. When she and Jo announce that they are going to extend their stay even longer, Fiona and Marlin are beside themselves. Fiona hates rocking the boat, but she is going to have to find the courage to stand up to these grown-up bullies so she and her sisters can have the life they wish to lead.

Pine Island Visitors is also available today in Audiobook!

The Portal Keeper: The Misewa Saga #4
By David A. Robertson
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880258 | Tundra Books
Eli and Morgan experience life-changing revelations in this new adventure in the award-winning, Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series.
While exploring World’s End, an area in Aski they’ve just discovered, Morgan and Emily delight in their developing relationship, while Eli struggles to understand his new-found power: the ability to locate a portal. A shocking turn of events leads them to a new village, Ministik, where the animal beings who live there are going missing. Horrified to discover who is responsible, the children vow to help and turn to friends, old and new. But it’s getting harder and harder to keep the two worlds separate, especially when details of a traditional legend change everything. Forever.

New in Paperback:

Seekers of the Fox: Thieves of Shadow #2
By Kevin Sands
416 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735270466 | Puffin Canada
Rule number one: Never mess with magic. Even so, a life-or-death situation calls for Callan and his criminal friends to make a deal with the Eye – the sinister, sentient artifact they stole from a sorcerer. It’s Lachlan’s life in exchange for a future task, and the gang has no choice but to agree. But even as Lachlan is resurrected, it’s not without cost. Through the Eye, Callan can see a tiny purple stain inside Lachlan’s soul, which will eventually consume him. The cure – and their part of the deal – lies with the Dragon’s Teeth, a pair of swords with extraordinary powers, and the search for them leads the thieves on a quest that will unravel the mystery of the Eye. Old friends, new betrayals, and an even more daring break-in than the last culminate in a confrontation that will take all the gang’s skill and power to resist – or they’ll die trying.

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share these books online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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Halloween Books: Get into the Spirit with Books for Young Readers

It’s officially spooky season! Get into the Halloween spirit with our lists of bewitching tales for all ages. This week, check out our list of stories to share with the young ghouls in your life!

Early Graphic Novels

A Super Scary Narwhalloween: A Narwhal and Jelly Book #8
By Ben Clanton
76 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266742 | Tundra Books
In the hilarious eighth book of this blockbuster graphic novel series, Narwhal and Jelly celebrate the spookiest time of the year – Halloween – with a super twist! Dive into three new stories that are sure to fright and delight! Narwhal loves Halloween – it’s a great excuse to dress up in a spooky and silly costume, like a ghost, a mermaid, a banana or maybe even Marlow the Mustachioed Moose. It’s a skeleTON of fun! Jelly isn’t dressing up, though – he’s a little scared of this time of year, and would prefer to hunker down in a hidey-hole until Halloween is over. But when a scary sea monster makes an appearance and swallows Narwhal (gulp!), can Jelly, with the help of some super friends, pluck up the courage to save his best bud?

Super Family: Simon and Chester #3
By Cale Atkinson
96 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880005 | Tundra Books
Welcome to the world of Simon and Chester, ghost and boy duo extraordinaire. Chester lives with his Grandma, his cat Mr. Pickles and Simon the ghost. Lately Chester has been feeling like he’s missing out when he sees other families out doing fun family things.  So when Chester gets the opportunity to join his friend Amie and her family on a trip to the water park, he is IN. Meanwhile, Simon is off to his yearly ghost conference, excited to finally have something to show off about (haunting his VERY OWN HOUSE, for example) to the cool ghosts. Maybe they’ll even accept him into their group! Will things go as planned? Well, let’s put it this way: both Simon and Chester are about to learn a thing or two about the old saying “The grass is always greener . . .” 

Chapter Books

Crimson Twill: Witch in the Country
By Kallie George
Illustrated by Brigitta Sif
80 Pages | Ages 7-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536214642 | Candlewick
Crimson Twill’s new friends from New Wart City, Mauve and Wesley, are coming for a visit! But as soon as they arrive at Crimson’s house in Cackle County, things start to go wrong. At the rotten apple orchard, Crimson’s ripening spell goes horribly awry (what will they do with all that rotten applesauce?). Then, at the broom-straw field, Wesley cuts too much straw and starts to float away. And when the friends try to collect frogs’ breath for their spells (it makes everything wonderfully green and warty), Mauve gets a stinky faceful of it! What on earth is going on? The whole countryside feels like something big is about to happen, and Crimson wonders if it has something to do with Granny Twill and that giant cauldron of stew she made. Can Crimson get to the bottom of this bad-luck mystery? And, more importantly, will her city friends ever want to visit her again?

Evie and the Truth About Witches
By John Martz
64 Pages | Ages 5-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271005 | Tundra Books
Evie wants to be scared, and the usual scary stories just aren’t doing it for her anymore. When she stumbles across a different sort of book, The Truth about Witches, she hopes she’s found something thrilling . . . but she’s forbidden by a kindly shopkeeper from reading the last page out loud! Naturally, her curiosity gets the better of her, and upon reading the last page out loud – a real summoning spell – Evie is spirited off to a strange land of magic, weird creatures, feasts, and actual witches! They’re not as scary as they seem, until Evie asks to join their ranks . . . and only once she does is her quest for true scariness satisfied . . .

Spooky Sleuths #4: Fire in the Sky
By Natasha Deen
Illustrated by Lissy Marlin
112 Pages | Ages 7-9 | Paperback
ISBN 9780593488966 | Random House BFYR
There are mysterious explosions near the old abandoned houses in town. Is it science . . . or is it something strange and ghostly? Find out in the latest installment to the spooky chapter book series Spooky Sleuths. Asim’s friend Max is in danger! Asim is sure some sort of supernatural being – a witch, maybe? – is after Max. Rokshar, the levelheaded one of the group, thinks the woman is a scientist using kids for her experiments! Either way, Max is in trouble, and it’s up to Asim and Rokshar to keep him safe. But when they get close to finding answers, Asim and his friends are attacked by fireballs. Is science behind the flying fire? Or is it a witch from Guyanese folklore? Find out . . . if you dare!

The Skull
By Jon Klassen
112 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536223378 | Candlewick
Jon Klassen’s signature wry humor takes a turn for the ghostly in this thrilling retelling of a traditional Tyrolean folktale. In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both? Steeped in shadows and threaded with subtle wit – with rich, monochromatic artwork and an illuminating author’s note – The Skull is as empowering as it is mysterious and foreboding.

Middle Grade

Don’t Want to Be Your Monster
By Deke Moulton
304 Pages | Ages 10-14 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880494 | Tundra Books
Adam and Victor are brothers who have the usual fights over the remote, which movie to watch and whether or not it’s morally acceptable to eat people. Well, not so much eat . . . just drink a little blood. They’re vampires, hiding in plain sight with their eclectic yet loving family. Ten-year-old Adam knows he has a better purpose in his life (well, immortal life) than just drinking blood, but fourteen-year-old Victor wants to accept his own self-image of vampirism. Everything changes when bodies start to appear all over town, and it becomes clear that a vampire hunter may be on the lookout for the family. Can Adam and Victor reconcile their differences and work together to stop the killer before it’s too late?

Double O Stephen and the Ghostly Realm
By Angela Ahn
320 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735268296 | Tundra Books
Stephen loves pirates. What he doesn’t love is his name: Stephen Oh-O’Driscoll. He believes when his Korean mother and Irish father gave him this name, that it was just one cruel setup for being teased. Giving things the proper name is important, which is why Stephen thinks that it’s time to update the definition of “pirate.” They’ve got a bad rep, and maybe they deserve some of it, but Stephen still likes a few pirate traditions, like bandannas and eyepatches – he’s just not that into stealing things from people. He has the perfect new word: piventurate. A sailor who passionately seeks adventure. That’s what he wants to be. When he gets suspended from school for doing proper piventurate-in-training things (using sticks to practice sword fighting), his mother doesn’t let him sit around doing nothing, instead she takes him to a museum. At the museum everything changes. Stephen finds himself in a strange new place, face-to-face with a real pirate. A pirate ghost. Captain Sapperton needs Stephen’s help to cross to the other side, and his former ghost crew are intent on making sure Stephen follows through, whatever it takes. Stephen is about to discover the true meaning of piventurate, and much to his surprise, his adventure will not only take him farther into the ghostly realm, but also closer to home, where long-held family secrets reveal surprising ties to the spirit world.

Escape to Witch City
By E. Latimer
312 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781101919330 | Tundra Books
Emmaline Black has a secret. She can hear the rhythm of heartbeats. Not just her own, but others’ too. It’s a rhythm she’s learned to control, and that can only mean one thing . . . Emma’s a witch. In a world where a sentence of witchcraft comes with dire consequences and all children who have reached the age of thirteen are tested to ensure they have no witch blood, Emma must attempt to stamp out her power before her own test comes. But the more she researches, the more she begins to suspect that her radically anti-witch aunt and mother are hiding something – the truth about their sister, her Aunt Lenore, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances years ago. The day of the test comes, and Emma’s results not only pair her up with strange new friends, but set her on a course to challenge everything she’s ever been taught about magic, and reveal long-buried family secrets. It seems witches may not have been so easy to banish after all. Secret cities, untapped powers, missing family members – Emma is about to discover a whole new world.

Ghostlight
By Kenneth Oppel
400 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735272354 | Puffin Canada
The story of the tragic death of sixteen-year-old Rebecca Strand and her lighthouse keeper father is just an elaborate tale Gabe tells tourists for his summer job on the Toronto Island. Or so he thought. When his ghost tours awaken Rebecca’s spirit, Gabe is drawn into a world far darker than any ghost story he’s ever heard. Rebecca reveals that she and her father were connected to The Order, a secret society devoted to protecting the world from “the wakeful and wicked dead” – malevolent spirits like Viker, the ghost responsible for their deaths. But now the Order has disappeared and Viker is growing even stronger, and he’ll stop at nothing to wreak chaos and destruction on the living. Gabe and his friends – both living and dead – must find a way to stop Viker before they all become lost souls.

Seven Dead Pirates
By Linda Bailey
304 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9781770498167 | Tundra Books
Lewis Dearborn is a lonely, anxious, “terminally shy” boy of eleven when his great-grandfather passes away and leaves Lewis’s family with his decaying seaside mansion. Lewis is initially delighted with his new bedroom, a secluded tower in a remote part of the house. Then he discovers that it’s already occupied – by the ghosts of seven dead pirates. Worse, the ghosts expect him to help them re-take their ship, now restored and on display in a local museum, so they can make their way to Libertalia, a legendary pirate utopia. The only problem is that this motley crew hasn’t left the house in almost two hundred years and is terrified of going outside. As Lewis warily sets out to assist his new roommates – a raucous, unruly bunch who exhibit a strange delight in thrift-store fashions and a thirst for storybooks – he begins to open himself to the possibilities of friendship, passion and joie de vivre and finds the courage to speak up.

The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story
By Charis Cotter
360 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269088 | Tundra Books
Alice’s world is falling apart. Her parents are getting a divorce, and they’ve cancelled their yearly cottage trip – the one thing that gets Alice through the school year. Instead, Alice and her mom are heading to some small town where Alice’s mom will be a live-in nurse to a rich elderly lady. The house is huge, imposing, and spooky, and everything inside is meticulously kept and perfect – not a fun place to spend the summer. Things start to get weird when Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that’s an exact replica of the house she’s living in. Then she wakes up to find a girl asleep next to her in her bed – a girl who looks a lot like one of the dolls from the dollhouse . . . . When the dollhouse starts to change when Alice isn’t looking, she knows she has to solve the mystery. Who are the girls in the dollhouse? What happened to them? And what is their connection to the mean and mysterious woman who owns the house?

The Grave Thief
By Dee Hahn
344 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269439 | Puffin Canada 
Twelve-year-old Spade is a grave thief. With his father and brother, he digs up the recently deceased to steal jewels, the main form of trade in Wyndhail. Digging graves works for Spade – alone in the graveyard at night, no one notices his limp or calls him names. He’s headed for a lifetime of theft when his father comes up with the audacious plan to rob a grave in the Wyndhail castle cemetery. Spade and his brother get caught in a royal trap, and Spade must find the master of the Woegon: a deadly creature that is stalking the castle by night. Along the way, he meets Ember, the queen’s niece, and together they race to solve the mystery of the legendary Deepstones and their connection to the Woegon, the queen, a missing king and the mysterious pebble Spade finds in the Wyndhail cemetery. This is a fantastic story of friendship, bravery, grief and acceptance.

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. These titles are now available in stores and online!

Catfish Rolling
By Clara Kumagai
432 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882764 | Penguin Teen Canada
There’s a catfish under Japan, and when it rolls, the land rises and falls. At least, that’s what Sora was told after she lost her mother to an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself. Sora and her father are some of the few who still live near the most powerful of these “zones” – the places where time has been irrevocably sped up, or slowed down. When high school ends, and her best friend leaves for university, Sora finds herself stuck and increasingly alone. She begins secretly conducting her own research, tracking down a time expert in Tokyo. She also feels increasingly conflicted in her quasi-romantic feelings for her best friend – and for the time expert’s assistant, a striking and confident girl named Maya, another hafu (half-Japanese, half-non) girl with whom Sora forms an instant bond. But when Sora’s father disappears, she has no choice but to return home and venture deep into the abandoned time zones to find him, and perhaps the catfish itself . . .

Scaredy Squirrel Gets Festive
By Melanie Watt
88 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269613 | Tundra Books
In his third NUTTY ADVENTURE, Scaredy is getting ready for Christmas ahead of time . . . WAY ahead of time (June). When December finally rolls around, Scaredy has everything in place: perfect red-and-green decorations, a perfect get-together planned (no parties!), perfectly personalized gifts for each of his friends, all the required permits for gingerbread-house construction (perfectly filled out) and, of course, a perfectly secured premises with a perfect spot for Santa. Yup, nothing can possibly go wrong . . . until friends Rash and Tim break the decorations! But Scaredy is filled with the spirit of the holiday and happy to help his friends finish their Christmas shopping. (Unless they’re shopping for Gary the germ?!) Prepare to get festive this Christmas with Scaredy and friends!

The Only Way to Make Bread
By Cristina Quintero
Illustrated by Sarah Gonzales
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271760 | Tundra Books
A delicious exploration of all kinds of breads, from sourdough to bannock to bao, that will tickle your taste buds and warm your heart.
What’s the only way to make bread?
You might use white flour in your bread, or whole wheat flour or corn flour.
You might use water or milk, maybe an egg or two.
You’ll use a handful of this, a dash of that, a bit of this and a splash of that.
Some dough will rise, some dough will bubble. Sometimes it will be sticky, sometimes it will be shaggy.  
What’s the only way to make bread?
Your way!
This tasty celebration of all kinds of bread will tempt bread lovers big and small. No matter what kind of bread YOU like to make, this book is for you!

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share these books online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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Halloween Books: Get into the Spirit with Picture Books

It’s officially spooky season! Get into the Halloween spirit with our lists of bewitching tales for all ages starting with picture books for the young ghouls in your life!

Alice’s Wonderland Bakery: A Hare-Raising Halloween
By Catherine Hapka
24 Pages | Ages 3-5 | Paperback
ISBN 9781368084574 | Disney Press
Fergie is excited to go to the Halloween celebration at Hearts Palace, but the timid rabbit admits to his friends that he sometimes gets a little overwhelmed during spooky parties. Alice and her friends help Fergie realize it takes bravery to admit you’re scared. Preschoolers are invited into the whimsical world of Wonderland through the eyes of 8-year-old Alice, the great-granddaughter of Alice from the original animated film. After inheriting her an enchanted bakery, Alice learns to cook and finds herself making magical memories while preparing and enjoying meals with her diverse community of friends in wacky, wonderful Wonderland. 

Bob’s Hungry Ghost
By Geneviève Côté
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Ebook
ISBN 9781770497146 | Tundra Books
Bob wants a dog for his birthday, but instead he gets a ghost . . . and its name is Fluffy. Unfortunately, Fluffy doesn’t fetch, sit or go for walks. But he does eat everything, and soon all of Bob’s things and even Bob himself end up in Fluffy’s belly. Will Bob find a way to tame his unruly and very hungry ghost? Will Fluffy realize that eating Bob wasn’t a very nice thing to do? All ends well in this sweet and silly look at appreciating what you have. And everyone will want a ghost for their birthday after reading this book.

Boo! Bluey’s Halloween: A Magnet Book
10 Pages | Ages 3-5 | Board Book
ISBN 9780593659540 | Penguin Young Readers Licenses
Boo! It’s time to have a frightfully fun time with Bluey in this magnet book! Based on the wildly successful animated series Bluey, as seen on Disney+
Join Bluey, Bingo, and all of their friends on a fun-filled nighttime adventure! This magnet book is perfect for Bluey fans!

Bruce and the Legend of Soggy Hollow
By Ryan T. Higgins
48 Pages | Ages 3-5 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781368059589 | Disney Hyperion
Celebrate all things scary with #1 New York Times best-selling author Ryan T. Higgins’s beloved Mother Bruce. Bruce is a bear who does not like holidays, and he really doesn’t like Halloween. His family of mice and geese decides the only way to get Bruce excited about Halloween is to tell a scary story. But their campfire tale takes a turn when a ghostly visitor appears. Will Bruce get in the Halloween spirit? Or will the Halloween spirit get Bruce?

First Night of Howlergarten
By Benson Shum
32 Pages | Ages 4-6 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593521274 | Penguin Workshop
First-day-of-school jitters take on a whole new meaning at howlergarten, where future werewolves prepare for their big transformation! Most kids go to kindergarten, but there is a special place for those who turn into werewolves. Instead of attending school during the day, these supernatural students go to howlergarten at night! There they practice tracking scents, listening to whispers on the wind, and more. But when one student named Sophie doesn’t seem to possess the basic skills, she worries she won’t become a werewolf at all. What will happen if she remains human when the full moon appears? Will she still be accepted as part of the pack, or will she be cast aside as an ordinary outsider? 

How to Make Friends with a Ghost
By Rebecca Green
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880401 | Tundra Books
What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren’t looking! If you follow these few simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you’ll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you. A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green’s debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.

Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein
By Linda Bailey
Illustrated by Júlia Sardà
56 Pages | Ages 5-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781770495593 | Tundra Books
How does a story begin? Sometimes it begins with a dream, and a dreamer. Mary is one such dreamer, a little girl who learns to read by tracing the letters on the tombstone of her famous feminist mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and whose only escape from her strict father and overbearing stepmother is through the stories she reads and imagines. Unhappy at home, she seeks independence, and at the age of sixteen runs away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, another dreamer. Two years later, they travel to Switzerland where they meet a famous poet, Lord Byron. On a stormy summer evening, with five young people gathered around a fire, Byron suggests a contest to see who can create the best ghost story. Mary has a waking dream about a monster come to life. A year and a half later, Mary Shelley’s terrifying tale, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, is published – a novel that goes on to become the most enduring monster story ever and one of the most popular legends of all time.

Monsters 101
By Cale Atkinson
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735267084 | Tundra Books
Readers who loved Unicorns 101 will love this laugh-out-loud picture book that finally sets the record straight about monsters! They’re so much more than just that scary thing under your bed. Join Professors Vampire, Blob and Werewolf, and their trusty lab assistant – a zombie named Tina – as they reveal eerie and frankly ridiculous monsters facts never uttered outside a crypt! Full of eye-popping illustrations and a story with nonstop sidesplitting laughs, plus a removable Professor of Monstrology diploma at the end of the book, Monsters 101 will have children – and adults – eager to enroll, time and time again!

Sir Simon: Super Scarer
By Cale Atkinson
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880395 | Tundra Books
Meet Sir Simon, Super Scarer. He’s a professional ghost who has been transferred to his first house. And to top it off, this house is occupied by an old lady – they’re the easiest to haunt! But things don’t go as planned when it turns out a KID comes with this old lady. Chester spots Simon immediately and peppers him with questions. Simon is exasperated. . . until he realizes he can trick Chester into doing his ghost chores. After a long night of haunting, it seems that maybe Chester isn’t cut out to be a ghost, so Simon decides to help with Chester’s human chores. Turns out Simon isn’t cut out for human chores either. But maybe they’re both cut out to be friends . . .

The Crayons Trick or Treat
By Drew Daywalt
Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
32 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593621028 | Philomel Books
The hilarious crayons from the #1 New York Times bestselling The Day The Crayons Quit are ready to celebrate Halloween! The Crayons want to go trick-or-treating, but they’re not sure what to say! In this humorous, small hardcover Halloween story, Purple Crayon teaches the rest of the crayon box the magic words to say when they ring their neighbors’ doorbells. (Hint: It’s NOT “Boo!”)

The Light Inside
By Dan Misdea
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593521625 | Penguin Workshop
How far would you go to find your very best toy if it went missing? Join a timid jack-o’-lantern on an adventure through an eerie forest in this sweet and quirky wordless picture book! Nighttime can be scary, especially when you don’t know what might be lurking in the dark. So this little jack-o’-lantern always keeps its favorite toy close by for comfort. But when a huge gust of wind separates them one day, the jack-o’-lantern must gather up bravery and set off on a journey – just as nighttime draws closer – to get its friend back. Dan Misdea’s eye-catching artwork and charming story will remind readers that they can overcome most fears by trusting in themselves and finding the courage that lives inside their heart.

The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt
By Riel Nason
Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735264472 | Tundra Books
Ghosts are supposed to be sheets, light as air and able to whirl and twirl and float and soar. But the little ghost who is a quilt can’t whirl or twirl at all, and when he flies, he gets very hot. He doesn’t know why he’s a quilt. His parents are both sheets, and so are all of his friends. (His great-grandmother was a lace curtain, but that doesn’t really help cheer him up.) He feels sad and left out when his friends are zooming around and he can’t keep up. But one Halloween, everything changes. The little ghost who was a quilt has an experience that no other ghost could have, an experience that only happens because he’s a quilt . . . and he realizes that it’s OK to be different.

Vlad, the Fabulous Vampire
By Flavia Z. Drago
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536233322 | Candlewick
Vlad is a vampire with the misfortune of having rosy cheeks that – gasp! – make him look abysmally alive. But being the fabulous vampire that he is (and hoping to avoid rejection), he hides his rosy complexion behind elaborate vampire outfits in traditional black. That is, until he finds out that his best friend has a pink secret of her own . . . . With signature flair, Flavia Z. Drago offers a story about being yourself and finding your community, strikingly illustrated in a distinctive, detailed art style influenced by her Mexican heritage.

Tundra Book Group