Drawn from the oral traditions of American folklore, these ghost stories and tales of weird happenings, witches, and graveyards have startling, funny, or surprising endings.

"Quirky, tool-wielding Alice Cannoli-Potchnik begins to repair the dilapidated mansion next door--only to discover the old house is home to ghosts, and they need mending, too"-- Ten-year-old Alice is moving for the eleventh time. She's lived in so many houses, each more broken than the last, that home to Alice is nothing more than a place you fix and then a place you leave. After all, who needs a permanent home when you're a whiz at fixing things?...

"Celeste knows she should be excited to spend two weeks at her grandparents' lake house with her brother, Owen, and their cousins Capri and Daisy, but she's not. Bugs, bad cell reception, and the dark waters of the lake... no thanks. On top of that, she just failed her swim test and hates being in the water-it's terrifying. But her grandparents are strong believers in their family knowing how to swim, especially having grown up during a time of segregation...

Second-graders Ivy and Bean set out to expel the ghost who is living in the girls' bathroom at their school.

Ginny is unhappy when her family moves from Chicago to upstate Michigan for the summer; her father has a job restoring a 1930s mansion, but there are rumors about Woodmoor and the forest next to it: rumors about strange mutant creatures; Ginny, an aspiring mystery writer, is soon half convinced that the rumors are true, because something or someone is haunting the house--and she plans to investigate, with the help of Will, the older boy who lives...

Marzana and her best friend, Nialla, are bored. In a city where normal rules don't apply, it seems that adventure should be everywhere, yet nothing exciting ever happens to them. Nothing, that is, until Marzana's parents are recruited to help solve a kidnapping that makes no sense. This could be the excitement Marzana and Nialla have been looking for-if they can crack the case without getting caught meddling. They gather a group of kid detectives...

"Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching, mean, old miser. He treats his family and employee poorly, and, in turn, is not a well-liked man. He especially does not like Christmas! But, one fateful Christmas Eve, he is visited by three ghosts that change his life forever!" -- Page [4] of cover.

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet. I will...

After being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, Holly Chase chooses not to mend her spoiled ways. Upon her death Holly discovers her selfishness has caused her to work for eternity as a ghost of Christmas past. Every year Project Scrooge saves another miserly grouch, and Holly stays frozen at seventeen while her family and friends go on living without her. But this year, everything is about to change ...