Zilpha Keatley Snyder

When mysterious men in black abduct his father, the court jester of Austerneve, thirteen-year-old Tymmon flees into the forest, where he acquires a strange animal companion and plots to rescue his father.

Story about a girl rescued from her loneliness by a charming young boy with a flute and a herd of multi-colored ponies.

Intent on investigating a rash of dog disappearances, eight-year-old Janie forms a detective agency and involves her friends and unwilling family in tracing clues and suspects.

Reluctant to admit that he suffers from claustrophobia and anxious not to alienate his friends, Rudy tries to find a way to distract them from pursuing their plan of exploring an abandoned gold mine.

Life is never quite the same again for eleven-year-old David after the arrival of his new stepsister, a student of the occult.

Feeling angry and out-of-place in her large family, twelve-year-old Xandra finds a magical key to a world of ghostly, sometimes frightening, phantoms that help her see herself and her siblings more clearly.

Melanie and April turn a deserted lot into an imaginary Egypt where they spend many hours enacting rituals and consulting oracles, but there are real dangers and problems lurking outside their make-believe world that almost bring their game to a disastrous end.