The Puppet's Payback and Other Chilling Tales by Mary Downing Hahn: The author of wildly popular ghost stories, Mary Downing Hahn has created a group of tales for fans of her "scary but not too scary" books.
Even the stories without actual ghosts are spooky. Each tale turns something ordinary - a pigeon, a white dress, a stranger on the bus, a puppet - into a sinister link to to the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behaviour in the present can lead to serious trouble. All the stories have a young person as the central character, so all will resonate with young readers who enjoy the eerie, the creepy, and the otherworldly.
In a concluding note, the author talks about how she came to write ghost stories. Perfect for 8 - 12 years readers and fans of fantasy.