House

...The Tin Man chambered another round slowly, as if needing time to contemplate what he'd just done.
  Jack heard a faint crackling sound. His eyes went to Susan's blood on the floor. But it wasn't the kind of red blood he expected to see. Red, yes, but laced with a crackling white light, as if it carried a charge.
  'Look to the light.'
  ...White stared at the girl.
  ...Stephanie rushed past Jack and dropped to her knees beside Susan's prone body. She reached out and began to whisper urgently past streaming tears.
  ..."Son of Man, have mercy on me, a sinner!" She drew a long, loud, gasping breath and wailed again.
  ...The truth struck Jack full in the face. Susan had taken their death as the guiltless one. She was the light in the darkness, but the wages of sin really was death. The guilty really had to die, just as White insisted. That was the game.
  But Susan was the Christ, who had died instead. And Tin Man seemed to know his mistake.
...The light came into the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it, but that no longer mattered because the light was now obliterating the darkness.

  This passage was taken from Frank Peretti's and Ted Dekker's "House". This was an incredible book, a suspenseful supernatural thriller, like the other books which these authors are known for. I thought after reading the first half, that it might just be another horror story about a haunted house and a demon possessed serial killer, but I should have known better. After reading many of Peretti's and Dekker's other books, I should have known from the beginning that it would end with a powerful point; not just a nightmare.
  Like many of their other stories, there is a deeper idea. An analogy: the house. Everyone is trapped in a "house", and this house (or life) reflects each individual person's lives, their sin, their fears, and the consequences of their actions. Just like in the book, there is also a murderer trying to kill us all, Satan, who takes on various disguises, and whose only goal is to kill, steal, and destroy. That said, the only way out is to call on the name of Jesus, confess your sins, and pray to Him to save you. The wages of sin is death, but the innocent lamb (the light) came down to earth (into the darkness), and sacrificed himself for us, thus defeating death (the dark).
  Horray! Christ wins! I like it when that happens.

Bridge to Terabithia

"Watcha doing Jess?" May Belle had followed him down again as he had guessed she might.
"It's a secret, May Belle."
... "I swear on the Bible I won't tell nobody. Not Billy Jean, not Joyce Ann, not Momma--" She was jerking her head back and forth in solemn emphasis.
"Oh, I don't know about Joyce Ann. You might want to tell Joyce Ann sometime."
"Tell Joyce Ann something that's a secret between you and me?" The idea seemed to horrify her.
"Yeah, I was just thinking about it... She wouldn't likely be a queen first off. You'd have to train her and stuff."
"Queen? Who gets to be queen?"
"I'll explain it when I finish, OK?"
And when he finished, he put flowers in her hair and led her across the bridge -- the great bridge into Terabithia -- which might look to someone with no magic in him like a few planks across a nearly dry gully.
"Shh," he said. "Look... Can't you see 'um?" he whispered. "All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you."
"Me?"
"Shh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for."

I loved this ending passage from the last chapter of Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia". This book almost made me cry, and I probably would have if I hadn't known beforehand how it ended. But it's a beautifully upsetting story of transformation. I mean, you have this girl, Leslie, who comes from out of the blew and totally changes Jess' life. Before her, Jess' family was completely detached from each other and he didn't want anything to do with any of them, especially his sisters. However, his sweet relationship with Leslie changes all that, and reveals to him the importance of having such close friends. This closing is the first time he has ever considered allowing Joyce Ann (his youngest sister) to have anything to do with him. His final statement is so sweet (opposite of what he's said in the past about his sister) that it makes the rest of the somewhat-depressing book worth it. Even though it is a sad story, Paterson tells it in such a way, and ends it so well, that I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has some "magic" in them.