Here are 85 books that Mystery of Black Hollow Lane fans have personally recommended if you like
Mystery of Black Hollow Lane.
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I’ve written books for kids of all ages, and always there were birds. Sparrows singing on windowsills, cardinals arrowing across yards, cormorants diving into Lake Erie, pigeons poking beneath park benches. Those things with feathers make my own heart sing! Slowly it dawned on me that I wanted to write a book where birds didn’t just flit across the pages but nested at the story’s heart. I had to do a lot of bird research for Perfect. What I learned about the precious, fragile bonds among all Earth’s creatures became one of the book’s themes: big and small, bound by gravity or able to defy it, we are all deeply connected.
Because…I love language, and Timberlake spins out one gorgeous sentence after another.
Set in 1871, the story follows Georgie Burkhardt as she tracks her big sister, who’s run away with “pigeoners”, a seedy bunch who follow the migration of passenger pigeons (which once existed in the millions but were hunted to extinction). Georgie’s voice is tough, funny, and wildly original, just like the West itself.
There’s plenty of mystery and suspense, but for me, it’s about the language! Here’s the glorious ending: “I say let all the world be alive and overwhelmingly so. Let the sky be pressed to bursting with wings, beaks, pumping hearts and driving muscles. Let it be noisy. Let it be a mess. Then let me find my allotted space. Let me feel how I bump up against every other living thing on this earth.”
Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Novel
“An adventure, a mystery, and a love song to the natural world. . . . Run out and read it. Right now.”—Newbery Medalist Karen Cushman
In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly.
But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn't, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of "pigeoners" trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And…
Not only have I written six critically acclaimed novels for middle-grade readers, including three historical fictions, I am the parent of a tween and teen who is always looking for great read-alouds and read-alongs for my own family. I am a firm believer that this is a valuable way to encourage literacy and love of story as I wrote in a recent, much-discussed essay inThe Atlantic. Having lived abroad, including as an exchange student and camper in the Soviet Union and for three years in Belgium, I am also a huge believer in expanding our own as well as our kids’ knowledge of history beyond our own borders, cultures, identities, and perspectives.
Varian Johnson’s story alternates between modern and historical timelines to create a mystery that is explored from different eras and perspectives.
In the current day, Candice and her friend Brandon play detective, trying to solve the puzzle of a fortune alluded to in a note they find in Candice’s grandma’s attic. We also get flashes from the 1950s of the small Southern town where the story is set.
This a great family read that allows readers to test their detective-solving savvy while exploring meatier issues such as racism and prejudice.
When Candice finds a letter in an old attic in Lambert, South Carolina, she isn't sure she should read it. It's addressed to her grandmother, who left the town in shame. But the letter describes a young woman. An injustice that happened decades ago. A mystery enfolding its writer. And the fortune that awaits the person who solves the puzzle.
So with the help of Brandon, the quiet boy across the street, she begins to decipher the clues. The challenge will lead them deep into Lambert's history, full of ugly deeds, forgotten heroes, and one great love; and deeper into…
Before I could start writing Into the Lion’s Mouth, I spent a lot of time researching the medieval and renaissance Venice. I was astounded to see how relevant that history is to today. Not only are there many parallels that can be drawn between the past and today there is so much to learn about the consistency of human nature. I find myself currently gravitating towards books that mix history and fiction and these are some of my favorites.
I found this book through a recommendation from a friend and I am glad I did. A truly spinetingling page-turner, The Crowfield Curse has all the elements of a medieval thriller. A strange magical creature, a mysterious grave, and a deadly curse. What more could you expect from your average medieval abbey? Beautifully written and thoroughly engaging it’s a keeper for your bookshelf.
*"Suspenseful and spooky...with an edgy battle between good and evil." --School Library Journal, starred review
If the deepest secret has been spoken, can the deadliest curse be broken?
Sent into the forest to gather firewood for the medieval abbey where he's an apprentice, Will hears a cry for help, and comes upon a creature no bigger than a cat. Trapped and wounded, it's a hobgoblin, who confesses a horrible secret: Something is buried deep in the snow, just beyond the graveyard. A mythical being, doomed by an ancient curse...
I’m the author of eleven novels for young readers (so far!). I’m also a lifelong bookworm, and I’ve got a special love for all things creepy, fantastical, and odd. Growing up, I adored mysteries from Scooby-Doo to Sherlock Holmes, and you could often find me hiding under the covers with a stack of books and a flashlight long after I should have been asleep. Here are five more recent middle-grade mysteries that I've loved. If they’d been around when I was a kid, they would have kept me up hours past my bedtime.
If a Wes Anderson movie collided with From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, it would feel something like this.Thirteen-year-old Theodora’s grandfather recently died, leaving her alone with her mentally ill mother, a crumbling Greenwich Village townhouse, a heap of unpaid bills, and the cryptic message, “Look under the egg”—and what Theo uncovers is a compelling mystery that stretches from the Italian Renaissance to the Nazi prison camps. The community that builds around Theo as she looks for answers is full of great New York eccentrics, and the Manhattan setting is captured with love and charm.
When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather's painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That's great news for Theo, who's struggling to hang onto her family's two-hundred-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather's legacy of $463. There's just one problem: Theo's grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen. With surprising twists, heartwarming moments, and historical facts, Laura Marx Fitzgerald creates the perfect adventure in Under the Egg.
I love how urban fantasy mixes magic and the real world, and I’m obsessed with stories that explore identity, especially when life throws you a curve ball and you need to recalibrate your existence around questions like “Who am I? Where am I going?” These books are set in contemporary fantasy universes and explore the themes of identity in different ways. Their worlds are bleak, which makes the spots of humor shine brighter and the protagonists’ triumphs all that more satisfying. As Ursula LeGuin said, “There must be darkness to see the stars.”
In this alternate Victorian London, those with purple eyes can see ghosts and spirits. Normally, this would mean Silas would have an elite career, but because he’s a trans man, he’s sent to a horrific girl’s boarding school for ‘treatment’.
I love how this book explores how you can be ‘you’ when everyone sees you as something else. Even though the institution is monstrous, it heightens the importance of Silas’s battle for identity. I really connected with him and couldn’t stop turning the pages, as I wanted to see how he’d survive and triumph.
A blood-soaked and nauseating triumph that cuts like a scalpel and reads like your darkest nightmare.
New York Times bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with the transgressive gothic horror of our time!
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 trans, autistic Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife.
After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed…
I have a real love of classic fiction and my first novel The Pretender is a modern-day adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. I discovered this story as a child when a relative gave me a copy to read on the journey home from Scotland. While aspects of the story are frequently copied, the essence of the original novel felt forgotten. It’s such a beautiful story with many of the themes still relevant today that I decided to adapt it so a modern audience could rediscover and fall in love with it all over again. As an author, I draw a lot of inspiration from the classics.
I do have a real penchant for dark stories and thrillers that ooze suspense and intrigue and Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is one of the best for that. I haven’t come across many stories that have adapted this so I was definitely interested in that. New Girl is a suspenseful adaptation of this classic. After the mysterious disappearance of an elite school’s most popular student, the new girl, who remains unnamed through most of the story, finds herself taking Becca’s place within the school and her friendship groups but is always aware she’ll never be able to escape her shadow. This is also a dual POV book. I enjoy both writing and reading from this perspective. This is an excellent adaptation of this mysterious classic.
It's hard to be the new girl--especially when she's filling the spot at an exclusive boarding school that was formerly held by perfect Becca, the girl everyone loved. Becca--the girl who disappeared and who may or may not be really gone.
Welcome to Manderley Academy
I hadn't wanted to go, but my parents were so excited . So here I am, the new girl at Manderley, a true fish out of water. But mine's not the name on everyone's lips. Oh, no.
It's Becca Normandy they can't stop talking about. Perfect, beautiful Becca. She went missing at the end of…
I’ve never belonged to a secret society, but I’ve always been drawn to the idea. When I wrote Stone Cove Island, I was thinking about secrets passed down between generations of the islanders, and I liked the idea that even within, but I liked the idea that even within this tiny community, there was an inner circle of people invisibly controlling things. I’d heard a story from a friend—and it might just be a story, but I’m not the only one who’s heard it—about a rich, private island where if you did something to displease the residents, they sent you a black sweater. No note. Just the sweater. The message was clear: time for you to go.
This is an obscure book you’ve probably never heard of from the 80s, but trust me here. (And yes, it’s set at a boarding school.) In this story, the kids assigned to group 6 are part of a secret society not of their own choosing. Their parents have sent them there to get rid of them. Permanently. With the help of their teacher, they escape to the wilderness to figure out how to survive
Arriving at what they believe is an exclusive boarding school, five sixteen-year-olds are unaware that they have been sent there to be exterminated and that their teacher is a murderer for hire.
Starting at age ten, I loved everything about Superman. I loved his origin story—who wouldn’t root for an alien baby arriving on Earth with superpowers that are eventually used to fight evil? Superman comics were a place for me to escape for entertainment and to dream about becoming something more…maybe something super. I hope kids today will dream about superheroes and, in the end, realize they have superpowers they can use to make their lives and the world a better place. This explains why I connect with the following five books.
Olive is sent away to RASCH, a private school on an island in the San Francisco Bay. There, she befriends a girl named Phil, who shares her love of "Meggie and Her Fun Family" comics. I’m not sure Meggie qualifies as a “superhero” per se. All we know is Meggie has something Olive thinks she’s always wanted, and isn’t that the allure of most superhero stories?
Olive has never fit in at the many schools she’s attended. She sees the world in a different way. I enjoy stories about smart girls who start out as misfits and eventually find their place in the world—and just maybe that place for Olive is still a place called misfit, and that’s okay so long as she’s not alone.
Yee and Santat form a strong team in bringing this delightful story to life. Their cast of misfits are kids I’d like to hang…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When a notorious thief is out for priceless treasure (gems! cats! general decorum!)—who're you gonna call? An elite team of crime-fighting underdogs, that's who! The Misfits are on the case in this hilarious illustrated series from Newbery Honoree Lisa Yee and Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat!
“For any kid who’s felt like a misfit, this crackling adventure packs a wallop!” —Lincoln Peirce, creator of Big Nate and Max & the Midknights
Olive Cobin Zang has . . . issues. And they mostly aren’t her fault. (No, really!) Though she often slips under the radar, problems have…
I am the co-author of Small Teaching K-8. I hold Massachusetts teacher licensure in English 5-12, Library k-12, and School Administration 5-8 as well as an M.Ed. from Boston College.
Lovers of John Green’s Looking for Alaska and Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep will appreciate this YA-novel.
In the Wild Light is a coming-of-age story about two friends plucked from rural poverty to attend an elite boarding school. Addiction, class, and friendship are major themes in this excellent portrait of an adolescent’s mind.
I've always loved when the light finds the broken spots in the world and makes them beautiful . . .
Cash's life in his small Tennessee town is hard. He lost his mom to an opioid addiction and his grandfather's illness is getting worse. His smart but troubled best friend, Delaney, is his only salvation. But Delaney is meant for greater things, and she finds a way for Cash to leave with her. Will abandoning his old life be the thing that finally breaks Cash, or will it be the making of him?
I spent all my teenage years daydreaming about being magical (cue a handful of sparkling glitter). Even as an adult, those daydreams haven’t stopped. Magic promises the ability to change the story. I revisit those teen years when I can because ultimately, what each of these stories of magic offer is a coming-of-age story. The struggle of being pulled between two different worlds has always felt familiar to me, whether those worlds are literally different worlds (magical vs non-magical) or figurative (childhood vs adulthood). I’ve felt some version of that struggle my whole life, and I think I always will, which is why these stories will always feel like home.
My best friend hates me for recommending this book, but I won’t stop. It’s 1895, and Gemma Doyle is British but has grown up in India. After seeing her mother killed in a vision (which she didn’t even know she had) and then finding she’s been killed in real life, Gemma is sent to boarding school to learn to become a proper lady. That’s when the real magic begins.
I love the friendships in this story, the real struggles, the grief, the dirt and grime of real life mixed with the mystery and glitter of magic. The story sucks me in every single time, no matter how many times I read it.
It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?
