Betsy Byars

For aspiring writer Amen McBee, life at the end of the nineteenth century with her four older sisters (Augusta, Abigail, and the "Bellas," twins Annabella and Arabella) is full of adventure. The only trouble in Amen's life is Mr. Tominski, the strange old man who lives in the woods and...

Junior Blossom has finally created the ultimate invention--the Green Phantom. It's big, black, Day-Glo green, and it's beautiful! All it needs is the secret ingredient. The whole family makes a promise to ensure that Junior's invention will be a success, a Blossom promise that can never be...

At the eerie Hunt mansion, Herculeah Jones has been reading aloud to Lionus Hunt, an elderly stroke victim who can only communicate by blinking his eyes (once for yes, twice for no). Mr. Hunt seems to be trying to tell Herculeah something, but his gruff nurse won't allow her to ask any questions...

Together with her best friend and reluctant sidekick, Meat, Herculeah Jones meets a famous mystery author, Mathias King, aka the Murder King. King's novels mirror gruesome, real-life murders, particularly A Slash of Life, which is about an unsolved local stabbing. Some people believe Mathias...

When Herculeah Jones's best friend, Meat, decides to take a comedy class, he just expects to get a few laughs. But then he discovers a dead body in the bathroom, and realizes that there's nothing funny about murder. Things can't get any worse—until the body disappears! Meat needs Herculeah's...

Herculeah Jones finds herself in the middle of another mystery when her best friend Meat barely escapes a hitman’s bullet. Someone must have mistaken Meat for someone else. But who? Herculeah is determined to solve the mystery, before the assassin comes after her!...

Madame Rosa, the eccentric local fortune teller, has been murdered, and the only witness is her parrot,Tarot. But he’s not talking. Herculeah Jones thinks she knows who the killer is, but she’s not the only one. . . . Someone else knows—someone who wants to make sure Herculeah won’t be...

A Newbery Medal Winner All summer Sara Godfrey has fretted over herself, her impossible body, her terrible new haircut. One moment she's elated, the next, she's in tears. And she can't figure out why. Maybe her wildly changing moods are tied to the sudden and unaccountable appearance of the...

Mystery is in Herculeah Jones’s blood. How could it not be, with a father on the police force and a mother who’s a private eye? So when Herculeah notices a man hanging around the "Dead Oaks" mansion, she can’t resist doing some investigating of her own. Legend has it the old...

When Herculeah discovers a mysterious letter inside the lining of a secondhand coat, she suspects it's a desperate cry for help. If so, what happened to the person who wrote it? Herculeah thinks she knows the answer. What she doesn't know is that someone is watching her-someone who will do...