A boy is trapped in a possessed car that has stalled in the path of an oncoming train. A girl is dragged into a crypt during a field trip to an eighteenth-century cemetery.nbsp;A group of friends meet their fate after an unsettling visit with a backwoods psychic. And that's just the beginning. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Celebratednbsp;author Vivian Vande Velde is at her spine-tingling best in this collection of thirteen scary stories, all of which take place on Halloween night. With tales that range from the disturbing to the downright gruesome, this is one collection that teens will want to read with the lights onnbsp;. . . and the doors locked. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Gr 6 Up-A collection of 13 stories that will thrill and chill readers. Each tale takes place on Halloween, and some stories are variations on familiar tales. Many are set in upstate New York, which lends a nice Ichabod Crane feel to the book. Well crafted, these spine-tingling selections rely on "gotcha" moments and old-fashioned suspense rather than gross-out horror. While all of them are enjoyable and worth mulling over, several stand out: in the creepy "Morgan Roehmar's Boys," a girl acting the part of a knifing victim during a haunted hayride comes face to face with a long-dead child murderer. "Pretending" describes a first date gone horribly wrong. "MARIAN" features a teen driver who finds himself at the mercy of his car, and the horrifying "My Real Mother" describes an adopted teen who searches for her blood (and, as it turns out, blood-sucking) mother, while leaving behind a gruesome mess at her adoptive parents' home. The writing is crisp and concise and truly packs a punch. Fans of horror fiction and suspense will not be disappointed.-Elaine Baran Black, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Creepy and gruesome, these horror stories all take place on Halloween night when high-school characters bridge the gap between the living and the dead. He opened the door, and a body fell out, a young woman with a bloody T-shirt and a knife sticking out of her back. Bodies are sawed into pieces and packed in plastic bags while a serial killer roams free. The grisly detail is sometimes funny, whether it's the threat to suck out a teen's brains through his eye sockets, or parents dressed as vampires offering their daughter's date a drink--A, B, or O-negative. The plots also have surprising twists and turns, with the trickster often outtricked. In a great story for readers' theater, two girls talk about their friendship in parallel narratives that present very different viewpoints of their relationship--which one will murder the other? Halloween fans too old for trick-or-treating will enjoy this, especially as a read-aloud. For more chilling tales, suggest Anthony Horowitz's\b Horowitz Horror (2006). --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2006 Booklist From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Come in and Rest a Spell Marian Morgan Roehmar’s
Boys Only on All Hallows’ Eve Cemetery Field Trip Best Friends Pretending
I Want to Thank You When and How When My Parents Come to Visit Edward, Lost and Far from Home My Real Mother Holding On

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.