Zach, Alice, and Poppy's friendship has always revolved around an ongoing game they play together, involving imaginary characters and an ever-expanding storyline. But now that they are in middle school, Zach has begun to worry how his basketball teammates would react if they knew what he was doing. His father throws Zach's game action figures in the trash, determined to push him to grow up and to protect him from potential humiliation. Enraged and embarrassed, Zach can't admit to Alice and Poppy what has happened, and instead announces that he is done playing. He gets drawn back in after Poppy becomes certain the old bone china doll they call the Queen, who rules their game from a spot inside a locked display cabinet, is haunting her. She believes the doll was made from the skeleton of a dead girl who wants the doll buried in her family's grave. Reunited in a common goal, the three friends set out in the middle of the night to return the doll bones to their proper resting place in another town. During a quest that includes stealing a boat and breaking into a public library, the trio is often at odds, discovering the real world is more difficult to navigate than the imaginary one in which they've spent so much time. Focused on young people straddling the border between childhood and adolescence, this novel of friendship serves up a satisfying mix of creepiness and contemporary realism. (Ages 9-13)

Discover the Newbery Honor winner Doll Bones, from Holly Black, the cocreator of the Spiderwick Chronicles. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book. A School Library Journal Best Book. A Booklist Editor’s Choice Books for Youth. A Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book. A NYPL “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.” A 2013 Goodreads Choice award nominee. A People Magazine “Best New Kids Book.” Six starred reviews!

Winner of a 2014 Newbery Honor Medal.

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her.

But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen—and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

Zach and Alice and Poppy set off on one last adventure to lay the Queen’s ghost to rest. But nothing goes according to plan, and as their adventure turns into an epic journey, creepy things begin to happen. Is the doll just a doll or something more sinister? And if there really is a ghost, will it let them go now that it has them in its clutches?

Doll Bones is a winner of the Newbery Honor, is the recipient of six starred reviews, was on four Best Book lists, and was called "perfect" by The New York Times.