A darkly fantastic middle-grade mystery with the ominous atmosphere loved by fans of Jonathan Auxier and Jonathan Stroud Thirteen-year-old Simon's life has been knocked askew ever since his family moved into his deceased grandfather's house. First there's his eccentric neighbor Mr. Hawkins, who is laid up with a broken leg. Simon's mother begins sending him over there with dinner for the elderly man, and soon Mr. Hawkins is depending on Simon to fetch old books and manuscript pages from all over his eerie, mirror-filled house. There's one mirror in particular, an ancient Egyptian piece, that keeps showing Simon visions of a disturbing figure emerging from its depths. No one else sees the figure, though—just like they don't see the huge, gaunt dog lurking in Mr. Hawkins' bushes. As Simon himself becomes increasingly plagued by a mysterious illness, he is powerless to help as his neighbor descends into paranoia about dark forces encircling his house....

Teenaged O -- never call her Ophelia -- is about to spend the summer with her aunt Emily. Emily is a poet and the owner of an antiquarian book store, The Green Man. A proud, independent woman, Emily's been made frail by a heart attack. O will be a help to her. Just how crucial that help will be unfolds as O first tackles Emily's badly neglected home, then the chaotic shop. But soon she discovers that there are mysteries and long-buried dark forces that she cannot sweep away, though they threaten to awaken once more. At once an exploration of poetry, a story of family relationships, and an intriguing mystery, The Green Man is Michael Bedard at his finest.From the Hardcover edition.