Ameri-Scares

Twelve-year-old Gabe Williams and 11-year-old Isabel Diaz are camping on Brown Mountain with the Outdoor Adventures Camping Club. While there are lots of fun things to do, such as riding four-wheelers, hiking, and tubing, neither Gabe nor Isabel wants to be there. Gabe had wanted to stay home and hang out with his friend. Isabel, whose parents had recently died, just wants to be left alone. One night, camp leader Mike tells the campers about the legend of the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights.

Vance Archer and Marybeth Wilkins, a pair of adventurous seventh-graders, have discovered an exciting activity called geocaching - a kind of scavenger hunt using GPS technology - that leads them after hidden treasures in the woods around their community. However, on one of their outings, they encounter a frightening, half-seen creature with glowing red eyes watching them from the shadows. Soon, Vance begins to receive mysterious messages on his phone from a caller named Indrid Cold. He learns this name is associated with the legendary Mothman.

Can ancient, unknown creatures surface in your own backyard? Twelve-year-old Pablo has lived in a small California desert town his whole life, and the sticky black tar puddle by the corral fence has been little more than a nuisance to walk around or step over. But when an earthquake cracks open the bottom of the puddle and mysterious rock-like eggs begin floating up to the top, Pablo and his best friends, Lauren and Victor, realize they have a mystery to solve. 

Cascade County, Montana...Middle schoolers Johnel Walker, Tony Walker, and Elliot Green have formed a summer book club. But when Elliot shows them a crusty, dirt-coated, ancient book he discovered in an abandoned cabin and says it’s one they should read next, Johnel and Tony aren’t impressed. They want Elliot to put the book back. Yet the book - or what’s inside it - has other ideas. Each Ameri-Scares novel is based on or inspired by an actual historical event, folktale, or legend specific to the state in which the story is set.

When 12-year-old Hilary Wilson’s family moves from Pennsylvania to Justice, Illinois, she finds herself feeling angry, frustrated, and lonely. To make matters worse, bully Frank Simmons, whose favorite pastime is scaring people, decides Hilary should be his next victim. Along with his friends Audrey and Todd, Frank challenges Hilary to join his “Cemetery Club”, which meets inside the huge, imposing Resurrection Cemetery and consists of a series of creepy pranks.  

Melody Martin is thrilled to be back in Tennessee to spend a week with her best friend, Jamie Snavely, over the winter break. Without Melody knowing it, however, Jamie has invited another girl, Gwen Jones, to join them for a sleepover. Melody never liked Gwen because the girl constantly brags and makes up wild stories that can’t be true, such as an encounter with the infamous Bell Witch spirit. To make things worse, a sudden blizzard knocks out all the power and phone service to the area.

On a hike along the shores of Lake Superior, 13-year-old Anna Hendrix sees a huge creature rise from the waters and - to her horror - sink a tour boat. Soon afterward, Jeff Griggs, also 13, encounters a similar but smaller creature in the woods around his parents' vacation house. Unable to resist investigating, both Anna and Jeff venture into the nearby forests. They meet each other at a huge waterfall, where they discover a hidden cave. Inside it, to their surprise, they find a cave painting of a creature that resembles the ones they have seen.

Identical twin sisters Carrie and Taylor thought their trip to a Catskill Mountain resort with their parents would be an ordinary summer vacation. But soon Carrie, angry that her parents are treating the twins like little kids instead of almost-teens, decides to protest by sneaking off and hiding in the mountain wilderness for a while. Little does she know that she is running away into a tangled and terrifying magical trap that will require all the courage she has as well as the help of her sister to escape. 

Anne and Julie, on a school field trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, are having fun looking at the aquatic creatures and talking about other students. But suddenly, in one darkened, deep sea room, Anne vanishes and a strange girl in ragged clothes appears in her place. Anne has switched places in time with a runaway slave named Millie. Now in the year 1849, Anne is captured by a cruel slave catcher and held as a thief on his sailing ship.

Twelve-year-old Danny has escaped the children's home where he has lived since he was four, returning to the Shenandoah Valley to find his parents and demanding to know why they gave him up.