SOLVED. Children/ Teens Fantasy. Boy with no name, (not the main plot point but there are chimera taxidermy involved). [s]

[Tiffany]

I remember this book like a decade ago so I'm not looking for books published after 2009/2010.

The main characters are a boy (he doesn't have a name they just call him "boy" the entire time), an older man (he might be the boys dad, not sure if adopted. he never gave the kid a name), and a girl.

I don't remember the plot at all but I remember one scene very clearly:

The boy and his dad go to another mans house to look for some information. They see that the man has many animal specimens for chimeras he had stitched together himself. The man shows the boy and the dad some small constructed dragons, and told the dad that he would give the info if the dad could bring it to life. The dad was able to make the dragons move and it was revealed when they left the house that the animals weren't really brought to life, their muscles are just moving because of electricity or something.

another detail that may or may not be helpful because I don't remember if it's actually from the same book or not:

- somewhere in the beginning the female mc walks into this theater to look for some guy and then blood was dripping from the ceiling & the guy was like dead & held up there somehow
-at the end the boy shoves the dad through some spirit door

[Becca]

I'm pretty sure this is The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick. Here's the Google Books preview in case you want to read part of it to check:
https://www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

[Tiffany]

OMG! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart... For years scenes from this book would just flash in my head, and it would bother me that I couldn’t remember where it was from.. But now, I finally have closure.