THE DAYS BETWEEN Christmas and New Year’s Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant, Boy, a child with no name and no past. The quick-witted orphan girl, Willow, is with them as they dig in death fields at midnight, and as they are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape. Praise for The Book of Dead Days: “Beautifully paced and sometimes blood-soaked. . . . A very tangible sense of evil.”—The Guardian “Subtle menace and power.”—The Independent “Packed with drama, mystery, and intrigue.”—The Bookseller

Many cultures have celebrations that commemorate their ancestors. Mexico's celebration, los Días de Muertos, the Days of the Dead, can be like a carnival. Young people throng the streets dressed up in ghoulish costumes. They beg for calaveras - treats - like candy skulls made of sugar or chocolate, and everyone buys pan de muerto, a bread decorated with a patter of bones. This is also a time for families to reunite in remembrance of those who have died. People go to market to buy what is needed for the ofrenda, or offering, to the souls of the departed - special foods and other items. The next morning, everyone goes to the cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones who have died. All through the night, they pray and sing by candlelight in celebration of the Days of the Dead. Author Kathryn Lasky and photographer Christopher G. Knight capture the spirit of this vibrant holiday with vivid prose and brilliant, full-color photographs.

YOU JUST CAN'T KEEP A GOOD CORPSE DOWN If the dead could come back for just one night, would we want them to? Meet the Haskins, a seemingly normal suburban family, as they prepare for the annual macabre holiday known as "Dead Day" - when the deceased rise from the grave from sunset to sunrise. Some come back to reunite with family and friends, others for one last night of debauchery, still others with only one thing on their decomposing minds: revenge. From writer Ryan Parrott (OBERON, VOLITION, Power Rangers) and artist Evgeniy Bornyakov (DESCENDENT, YOU ARE OBSOLETE) comes an unnerving tale of existential horror with grave consequences.

By the critically acclaimed author of Tyger Tyger, a warm, magical story of a girl’s struggle to keep a promise to her dead mother. Glorieta Magdalena Davis Espinosa is happy that Papi married Alice. She’s happy that he can smile again after years of mourning Mamá. But the urn containing Mamá’s ashes disappeared into a drawer the day Alice moved in. If everything about Glorieta’s life is going to change, then she wants one thing to go her way: She wants to hear stories about her mamá when the family gathers on the last night of los Días de los Muertos. And that can only happen if Tia Diosonita will allow Mamá to be buried with the Espinosas in holy ground. If she will allow people to speak Mamá’s name. With the help of her best friend, River, and her cousin Mateo, Glorieta sets out to convince Diosonita that Mamá is not burning in Hell. To do so, she’ll have to learn to let hate go—and to love the people who stand in her way. In prose that sparkles with magical undertones, author Kersten Hamilton weaves a tender story about grief, faith, and the redemptive power of love.

They’ll never see her coming. . . . When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue—in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there—her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were the city’s star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor—and she can’t even remember what it was. Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice—and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again—but this time there’s no second chance. . . .

It's October 31, the first of the Days of the Dead in Mexico, and Maria Molina and her family are in the graveyard to honor her baby brother Pablo, who died when he was just a few months old. A candle flickers in the dark night, and on Pablo's grave they have placed his favorite toys, some chocolate, a sugar skull, and even a small 'Bread of the Dead.'Throughout Mexico, other families are doing exactly the same thing, for the threeday festival of The Days of the Dead is one of Mexico's most important holidays.

Examines how Day of the Dead celebrations among America's Latino communities have changed throughout history, discussing how the traditional celebration has been influenced by mass media, consumer culture, and globalization.