Leigh Botts is a teenager and ready to start high school. He lives with his mother who, while working at the hospital, is studying to be a nurse. His mom and his truck driver dad are divorced, but he still sees his dad fairly often. Still, Leigh can't get used to not having a two parent family. He misses his dad. His mother is away a lot because of her schooling and full-time job.

Leigh's closest friend is Barry Brinkerhof. While running on the beach together, the boys found a stray dog which was friendly but refused to go with them. Clearly, someone had told him to "stay" and he wouldn't move, even though he had been abandoned. Finally, a day later, the boys coaxed the dog to follow them home. Leigh knew the lady who owned the house he and his mom lived in might not allow a dog. So the two boys decided to share ownership. They named their new dog "Strider." Strider had been well-trained and was a good dog. However, he just kind of freaked-out if you tried to order him to "stay."

Leigh began running on the beach almost every day with Strider. Barry ran sometimes with them but not as regularly as Leigh. When school started, Barry went out for football. Leigh wasn't interested in football, but his was getting in such good shape that he decided to try out for the track team. He was good at running the eight hundred. Barry gradually realized that Strider really was becoming Leigh's dog, so he willingly gave up his share. When Leigh met a pretty red-headed girl who liked to run and who liked Strider, he knew that the dog was really helping him turn his life around.

A ghost story that involves a vengeful child ghost
targeting other kids

Thirteen-year-old Ali lives with her mother and father in a town in New England. Claire, her mother, is rather high-strung and has periodic migraine headaches. Ali and her dad have learned to try to not upset Claire. To Ali's surprise, when she begins to ask her mother questions about a picture of three girls found in an old children's book, her mother becomes very upset. The picture is one of three young girls - two of them are Claire and her slightly older sister, Dulcie. The third girl is unidentified and Ali's mother refuses to talk about her. The mom does admit the picture was taken at an old family lake cottage in Maine. The family has not been back to the cottage in the past thirty years.

A short time later, Ali's Aunt Dulcie shows up for a visit. She has her four-year-old daughter, Emma, with her. Aunt Dulcie is an artist and she is preparing to show some of her work in the fall at a gallery in New York City. She had employed a handyman to fix up the old lake cottage in Maine. She wanted to go there for the summer to prepare for her New York show. A studio has been fitted out for her in the boathouse at the lake. Aunt Dulcie wanted Ali to stay the summer with her at the lake and be a babysitter for Emma. Ali was thrilled at the prospect, but her mother seemed to be adamantly opposed. Finally, with the combination of Ali, her father, and Aunt Dulcie making the case that it would be good for Ali to go, her mother reluctantly agreed. Interestingly, neither Claire nor Dulcie ever talked about why their family had stopped going to the lake so many years before. Ali's mom even refused to get out of bed the day they left for the lake.

When Ali arrives with Aunt Dulcie and little Emma at the lake, they find the cottage and the boathouse in surprising good repair. Ali likes her little room upstairs in the cottage. The weather is not great, but the day after they arrive, Ali takes Emma for a walk along the shore of the lake. To her surprise when Emma runs ahead of her, she finds a girl standing beside Emma. The girl was about nine or ten and slightly built. She had white blond hair, eyes the color of the lake, and tanned skin. She was wearing a faded blue bathing suit, even though the temperature was cold. Emma introduced the girl by saying "This is Sissy. I just met her but she wants to be friends." There was something about Sissy that Ali disliked on sight - sharpness in her eyes, a mean set to her mouth. She looked like the type who'd lie and get you into trouble.

It wasn't long before Emma started misbehaving - acting like Sissy. Sissy had convinced Emma that Ali didn't want Emma to have a new friend. When Aunt Dulcie started to question Emma's bad behavior, she blamed Ali for it and refused to see Sissy as having any part in it. Things rapidly got worse. Ali knew that Sissy was intent on getting Emma in the lake. Did she want Emma to drown? When Ali started to suspect that Sissy was the girl from the old picture and had drowned thirty years before, she knew that she'd never get grown-ups to believe her. Nobody would believe that Sissy was a ghost. Ghost or not, Sissy seemed intent on doing harm to Emma and even to Ali. The trip to the lake was turning into a nightmare.

If you like ghost stories, you might want to read "Deep and Dark and Dangerous" by Mary Downing Hahn. You do need to read the book if you want to find out what becomes of Ali, Emma, and Sissy.

A girl thinks she has to steal a horse
to save it from mistreatment

Sixth grader Libby Roselli lived in southeastern Minnesota. The Rosellis operated an apple orchard. Their next door neighbors, the Porters, owned a stable where Jolene, Mrs. Porter, gave riding lessons. Libby earned her riding lessons by helping Jolene take care of the horses. Libby's favorite horse was Thunderbird, a seven-year-old Appaloosa. Thunder, as the horse was called, was too spirited for beginning riders. However, Libby had a way with the horse and Jolene allowed her to exercise him regularly. Libby was shocked when she received an apologetic note from Jolene telling her that she was leaving and she and her husband were selling the horses. The asking price for Thunder was $5000. That was just too much money for Libby's parents to come up with.

Even though she knew Jolene was gone, Libby sneaked over to the stable to see Thunder. While unobserved by Mr. Porter, she saw him kick Thunder and mistreat the Appaloosa, using a quirt to hit the horse around the head, injuring his eye. Libby just knew she had to do something to protect the horse. But what could she do?

On one of her excursions to visit the stable, Libby got acquainted with a new boy from her school named Griff. Griff was on his bicycle and she met him while he was watching the horses in the pasture. Libby recruited Griff to help her come up with an idea to save Thunder and the two other horses left at the stable. The kids planned to steal the three horses and hide them in a non-used barn at a nearby farm. Unfortunately, Mr. Porter suspected Libby and Griff and was watching more closely than the kids guessed he would. Could they save the horses before the mean Mr. Porter killed them to collect insurance? You need to read "Stealing Thunder" by Mary Casanova to find out.