Summer Reading 2020: Thrills, Chills, & Puzzles

In 1665 London, fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe, apprentice to an apothecary, and his best friend, Tom, try to uncover the truth behind a mysterious cult, following a trail of puzzles, codes, pranks, and danger toward an unearthly secret with the power to tear the world apart.

When a book of unexplainable occurances brings Petra Andalee & Calder Pillay together, strange things start to happen: seemingly unrelated events connect, an eccentric old woman seeks their company, & an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal.

Twelve-year-old Kyle wins a coveted spot to be one of 12 children chosen to stay in the new town library--designed by his hero, the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello--for an overnight of fun, food and games, but in the morning, the kids find all the doors still locked and must work together to solve secret puzzles in order to discover the hidden escape route.

When a young boy is discovered in Washington DC’s National Gallery without any recollection of who he is, so begins a high-stakes race to unravel the greatest mystery of all: his identity. As the stakes continue to rise, the boy must piece together the disjointed clues of his origins while using his limited knowledge to stop one of the greatest art frauds ever attempted.

In the 1980s, as her mother prepares to be a contestant on a television game show, Miranda tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space. Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death.

In Evanston, Virginia, 12-year-olds Jonathan Murray and Shelley Brown are completely average and forgettable until they are recruited to help the League of Unexceptional Children save the vice president of the United States, who has been kidnapped along with an important code.

The 15-year-old super agent swings back into action in his eleventh outing, after a fragmentary e-mail message convinces him that his nanny-sidekick, Jack Starbright—killed (supposedly) before his eyes in Scorpia Rising (2011)—is still alive. From Egypt to France to Wales, from luxury yachts to abandoned coal mines, Alex traverses a minefield of dangers and cryptic clues as he fights to discover the truth.

It is 1943, and thirteen-year-old Michael O'Shaunessey, son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany in Berlin, is also a spy for the British Secret Service, so he has joined the Hitler Youth, and pretending that he agrees with their violence and book-burning is hard enough--but when he is asked to find out more about "Projekt 1065" both his and his parents' lives get a lot more dangerous.

Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he's already pegged his dream job: C.I.A. or bust. Unfortunately for him, his personality doesn't exactly scream "secret agent." In fact, Ben is so awkward, he can barely get to school and back without a mishap. Because of his innate nerdiness, Ben is not surprised when he is recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science--but he's entirely shocked to discover that the school is actually a front for a junior C.I.A. academy.

Targeted by international super-spies, top-secret government agencies and a genius chimpanzee when their father invents a time machine, the three Cheeseman children, their psychic dog and a sock puppet find themselves on the run and confronting a series of high-action adventures.

Seventeen-year-old Denise Farber, her mom, and her stepfather are moving back to New Orleans, into the Argonne house, which is over 100 years old, and really showing its age. Her mother plans to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast--but old houses have histories, and sometimes ghosts. A mysterious old comic book that Denise finds in the attic may hold the answer to a crime and the terrifying things that keep happening in what she thinks of as the "Agony" house.

Cordelia Liu knew Shadow School was going to be different. Still, she didn't expect the school grounds to be filled with ghosts. Cordelia soon realizes she's not the only one who can see the ghosts; her new friend Benji can too. Together with super-smart Agnes, the trio are determined to find out why the ghosts are there, and whether there's a way to set them free. But the school was created with more sinister intentions, and someone is willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure that the ghosts remain trapped forever.

Twelve-year-old Katherine Bateson believes in a logical explanation for everything. But even she can't make sense of the strange goings-on at Rookskill Castle, the drafty old Scottish castle-turned-school where she and her siblings have been sent to escape the London Blitz. Kat believes Lady Eleanor, who rules the castle, is harboring a Nazi spy. But when her classmates begin to vanish, one by one, Kat must face the truth about what the castle actually harbors—and what Lady Eleanor is—before it's too late.

Along the train lines north of New York City, twelve-year-old neighbors Myla and Peter search for the link between Myla's necklace and the disappearance of Peter's brother, Randall. Thrown into a world of parkour, graffiti, and diamond-smuggling, Myla and Peter encounter a band of thugs who are after the same thing as Randall. Can Myla and Peter find Randall before it's too late, and their shared family secrets threaten to destroy them all?

London has been overrun by malevolent spirits, and only young people have the psychic abilities required to see—and eradicate—these supernatural foes. A talented group of young psychic detectives competes against other ghostbusting Psychic Detection Agencies: the plucky and talented Lucy Carlyle teams up with Anthony Lockwood, the charismatic leader of Lockwood & Co (a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision) and their sarcastic colleague, George.