The Blue Ghost
by Marion Dane Bauer

Liz helps her grandmother clean out a house that has been in the family for generations. During her visit she meets ghosts and is able, by traveling into the past, to help an ancestor.
This story has just enough suspense and mystery for the young reader moving into chapter books.

Clementine
By Sara Pennypacker

Third-grader Clementine feels lucky that spectacular ideas are continually "sproinging up" in her brain, but her best friend, parents, teacher, and principal don't see things in quite the same way.
In one short but eventful week Clementine finds herself in the principal's office again and again, struggling to explain perfectly reasonable behavior to increasingly impatient adults.
Why, for example, can't her friend Margaret's mother appreciate that Clementine was trying to help when she cut off all of Margaret's long shining hair with plastic school scissors?

When Dexter presents his perky 4th grade teacher with his first assignment, it reads, "This morning I beat up a kid. I am tuf." Ms. Abbott pushes him to add details and much more to his story. With each revision readers learn more about why Dexter is angry, confused, worried, lonely, sorry, and why he hit Robin in the bathroom, and they see the developing friendship between the two boys.
They discover that on Dexter's first day at his new school, he is left abruptly in a hallway by the school secretary and is laughed at when he falls on a slippery floor.
They find out why he is living with his grandmother in Kentucky while his parents are at a hospital in Seattle. Slowly, they learn, along with Dexter, that the incident didn't happen exactly as he remembers it.

Erupts!
by Frances O'Roark Dowell

The Ghost's Grave
by Peg Kehret

When Josh moves in with his aunt for the summer he is very unhappy since Aunt Ethel has no television and no Internet. The first night, however, seems to set the stage for things to come. Aunt Ethel shoots down a bat that is flying in her kitchen.
The next morning Josh wakes up to a peacock on the front porch. Aunt Ethel tells Josh the peacock is his Aunt Florence, her dead sister.
Just when Josh thinks things can't get any weirder, Aunt Ethel tells Josh about a tree house back in the woods which Florence thought was haunted.

The Homework Machine
by Dan Gutman

Fifth-grader Brenton is a computer genius, but the other three members of his work group think he's a nerd. So, when he tells them that he has invented a machine that does homework, they taunt him until he agrees to demonstrate.
The machine actually works, and Kelsey, Sam, and Judy convince him to let them use it. At first, they are delighted with their freedom, but things quickly get out of hand. Their teacher is suspicious of the suddenly errorless work, and other friends resent the time that they spend together.

Listen!
by Stephanie Tolan

The approaching summer looms bleakly over 12-year-old Charley. Her best friend has left for tennis camp, her father's 80-hour workweek ensures he never has time for her, and she still mourns the death of her mother, a nature photographer who died in a plane crash two years earlier. Charley, who is recovering from a recent car accident, is frustrated with the long hikes she must take to strengthen her injured leg. But on one such walk she meets Coyote, a shy, intelligent stray, and through the process of taming and opening her heart to the dog, Charley learns to feel again and comes to terms with her mother's death.

The Missing Manatee
by Cynthia DeFelice

It's spring break, and Skeet Waters, 11, wants to spend his time fishing in his boat just off the coast of his Florida home. Instead, his day begins with him overhearing his mother telling his father to move out for good.
Things go from bad to worse when Skeet finds a manatee floating in the water, dead from a gunshot wound. He goes back to shore to get the sheriff, and when they return to the spot, the animal is gone.
The boy makes finding the missing body and bringing the killer to justice his mission. Skeet faces many difficult problems throughout the book, each with serious consequences.