Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg, 1981.
Judy and Peter, a brother and sister, are left home alone while their parents go to an opera. In spite of their parents’ warning not to make a mess because they’ll be bringing guests by later, the kids scatter all of their toys around while playing. Then, the kids go to the park to play for awhile, and they find a board game labeled Jumanji with a note that the game is free to anyone who wants to play it. Judy and Peter decide to give the game a try and take it home.
Jumanji turns out to be a kind of race game. Players are supposed to make their way down a path through a jungle, facing all kinds of dangers, until someone reaches the golden city of Jumanji. The instructions warn them that once a game has begun, it will not be over until one of the players reaches Jumanji.
At first, Peter thinks that the game is boring and easy, but it soon becomes apparent that things that happen in the board game are starting to happen in real life when a live lion suddenly appears after an encounter with one on the game board. Peter is scared and wants to stop playing, but Judy reminds him that they can’t stop because the game won’t end until one of them reaches the end of the path on the game board. Until the game ends, they’re stuck with the lion and anything else that happens to appear because of the game. They have no choice but to keep playing, facing each danger as wild animals rampage through their house.
Chris Van Allsburg books always have amazing illustrations, and the pictures in this book are especially good! At the end of the book, the children see two other children find the game, which leads to the sequel, Zathura.
There is a movie version of this book, but the movie differs greatly from the original story. In the movie, the two kids were friends, not brother and sister, and the boy ends up trapped in the game for a period of years until, finally, a new set of kids starts playing and helps the original players to finish their game. When their game ends, the original children are returned to their own time, and no one but them knows that they were ever gone. Things turn out better for the future children as well because the older players make things better for everyone in their own time. There were no players stuck in the game in the original book, and everything takes place during a single day.
The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.
This is the first book in the 
It’s 1851, and Professor Carver of Boston is living in an apartment above a candle shop with his wife and two children, his son Jamie and daughter Lorna. One day, a man named Mr. Giddings comes to see Professor Carver to request his help. For years, he has wanted to buy a particular farm with a beautiful house called Windy Hill. However, when he finally succeeded in buying the house and he and his wife went to live there, his wife became very upset. She said that she felt strange in the house and that she had seen a ghost. Now, she is too upset to return to Windy Hill. Mr. Giddings has heard that Professor Carver once helped a friend get rid of a ghost haunting his house, and he asks the professor if he would be willing to do the same for him.
Jamie and Lorna are thrilled by the house, which is much bigger than their apartment in town. They can each have their own room, and there is an old tower in the house that was built by a former owner, who was always paranoid about Indian (Native American) attacks (something which had never actually happened). However, their new neighbors are kind of strange. Stover, the handyman, warns them that the house is haunted and also tells them about another neighbor, Miss Miggie. Miss Miggie is an old woman who wanders around, all dressed in white, and likes to spy on people. There is also a boy named Bruno, who apparently can’t walk and often begs at the side of the road with his pet goat, and his father, Tench, who is often drunk and doesn’t want people to make friends with Bruno.
Then, strange things do start happening in the house. The quilt that Lorna has been making disappears and reappears in another room in the middle of the night. At first, the family thinks maybe she was walking in her sleep because she had done it before, when she was younger. However, there is someone who has been entering the house without the Carvers’ knowledge, and Jamie and Lorna set a trap that catches the mysterious “ghost.”
In the Kaiser’s Clutch by Kathleen Karr, 1995.
Summer is difficult for the Muskrat kids this year. Their friends are away for the summer, and Harvey and his older sister Mildred are getting on each other’s nerves. But, there’s nothing that says they have to spend the whole summer with each other.
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck, 1998.
Something Fishy at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman, 1995.
The Mystery in Old Quebec by Mary C. Jane, 1955.
The solution to the mystery involves family quarrels, custody issues, and racial tensions. In spite of that, this is actually a very gentle story. In the end, the kids are dependent on the people the mysterious message was intended for to help a troubled, lonely child. It turns out that the boy is an orphan, and some of his relatives are white, and some are First Nations (Native American). There is a fight for the boy’s custody, but the boy knows where he really wants to be.
Scare Yourself to Sleep by Rose Impey, 1988.
