When August DuPont, eleven, leaves his eccentric Aunt Hydrangea's crumbling mansion for the first time ever, he meets family, makes a friend, and attracts a zombie.

Twelve-year-old Joey and his fifteen-year-old sister Philly relate their experiences trying to cope in a family already strained by the mother's extended travel, and pushed further apart by the father's disappointment that Joey is more interested in drawing deer than hunting them.

"Ronald 'Cheesie' Mack relates events he and his best friend, Georgie, experience as fifth grade comes to an end and their summer plans are drastically changed, due in part to an old, possibly valuable coin that may belong to the mysterious inhabitants of a place they call The Haunted Toad."--Publisher description.