Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury

Dylan and his scout troop live on the island of Hawaii. They are going on a weekend campout at Halape, a remote beach campground on the southern flank of Kilauea volcano. While they are there, there is an earthquake and tidal wave. Their entire campground is gone, and all of the boys and scout leaders are lost and injured. Dylan and his enemy Louie must team up to find the rest of the troop and rescue them. They finally locate everyone. Some of them are so badly injured that they can't hike back up the trail. Louie and Dylan decide to hike out to get help. When they are about to give up, they are rescued by the Coast Guard. Everyone survives and they are all very glad to get home. This book is based on a true story of a scout troop that experienced just such an event in 1975. In the real tsunami, one of the scouts and one of the leaders was killed.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Winner of the Newbery Award 2009. As a toddler, Bod's entire family is murdered. He wanders out of the house and escapes. He ends up in a nearby graveyard where he is adopted and protected by the ghosts and witches buried there. He is adopted by a husband and wife ghost who always wanted to have children. A vampire becomes his guardian and a werewolf his tutor. He is educated by the entire graveyard and learns the ways of the dead. He meets only one other human, a girl named Scarlett, who becomes his friend. He is captured by ghouls and makes friends with a witch. As he gets older, he wants to attend school, but finds that his life is in danger. The man Jack who killed his family is still after him. Eventually, Jack finds him and tracks him to the graveyard where the ghosts and witches help him to destroy Jack and his friends. When he becomes 15, he loses his powers to converse with the dead and enters the world of the living.