The Magnificent 12: The Call / Michael Grant / 160 pages

"David MacAvoy - whose friends call him Mack - was not an unlikely hero.  He was an impossible hero."  "Only twelve, not especially big, strong, wise, kind, or good-looking, plus he was scared of a list of things...spiders, dentists, fire, puppets, shots, oceans, sharks... so this was not a twelve year old you'd expect to become one of the greatest heroes in human history - not the person you'd expect would try and save the world from the greatest evil it had ever faced.  But that's our story."  Mack is visited by an extraordinarily creepy creature from the past and learns that he must assemble the Magnificent Twelve.  The Pale Queen was imprisoned below ground three thousand years ago and is soon to be released...unless the Magnificent 12 can stop it.  Mack and his bully/body guard, Stefan, travel to Australia, encounter Risky, the queen's daughter, and enlist the second member of the elite, if somewhat dubiously heroic, group.  This first book in the series, by the author of the Gone series, features adventure with a capital A.