From the smallest little goblins to the most monstrously wonderful middle grade readers, we’ve got spooky book recommendations for everyone. Have a ghostly Halloween!
Ghost in the House
By: Ammi-Joan Paquette
“There’s a ghost in the house/In the creepy haunted house/On this dark, spooky night, all alone./And he goes slip-slide/With a swoop and a glide/Until suddenly he hears… a groan!” The next page reveals a skinny mummy with an egg-shaped head; together they prowl around the house until they find a monster. The group discovers a skeleton and then a witch. But the last creature they find is the most frightening of all: a boy! The discovery sends the five creatures running from the house in a panic as the child calls, “Good night!” At first, the ghost and his friends are worried about who they will meet around the next corner, but smile when they encounter another of their ilk. This cumulative counting story consists of full-spread, digital artwork that features nonthreatening creatures set against smudgy backgrounds that evoke the feeling of an old, abandoned house. The simple rhyme has a bouncy rhythm that would make this book an enjoyable read-aloud for a not-so-scary storytime. This slightly spooky tale does not mention Halloween, so it can be enjoyed year-round. Ages 3 – 7 (School Library Journal)
Romping Monsters, Stomping Monsters
By: Jane Yolen
The menagerie of monsters from Yolen and Murphy’s previous pairing (Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters, 2011) returns for an adventure at the playground. All sorts and sizes of monsters gather at Creepy Commons to have some fun. The author uses two- or three-word phrases to build a steady rhyming text describing the full range of activities taking place. “Monsters stretch. / Monsters twirl. // Monsters catch. / Monsters hurl. // Monsters tumble, / Run, and lope. / Monsters jump / A monster rope.” The cadence will be soothing to young ears, leaving the eyes of toddlers and preschoolers to discover the playful details found throughout the soft-hued illustrations painted in oil, acrylic and gel. This diverse bunch is cute and cuddly without coming across as overly sweet. Some have four eyeballs, and some have only one. Pointy horns and handlike hair sprout from curious places on this happily rambunctious crew. Big and small, young and old–all cavort on slides and swings. Occasionally, there is a mishap–”Monsters in / Three-legged races / Fall upon / Their Monster faces”–but it is nothing a “monster-sicle” treat cannot fix. Young ones will want to join in on this monster romp again and again, since it is all so silly, comforting and familiar. Ages 3 – 7 (Kirkus Reviews)
Madeline and the Old House in Paris
By: John Bemelmans Marciano
Much-beloved and as spirited as ever, Madeline is back in Paris to help out a miserable ghost and create a scare of her own intended for the school’s headmaster. Marciano (Madeline at the White House, 2011) continues his series of sequels to his grandfather’s original works. With gouache, pen and ink, he closely duplicates the style of the classic titles and even includes a number of pages executed in black on yellow. The rhythm of the rhyming text is also reminiscent, as when the action begins with an unexpected visitor: “One afternoon at a quarter past five, / a long black car pulled into the drive.” It’s Lord Cucuface, who conducts an inspection of the premises and discovers a “most / splendid telescope,” which he promptly takes with him. But in the middle of that night, Madeline hears moaning and groaning. It’s the ghost of an astronomer, who needs the telescope back in time to observe a comet he’s been waiting 221 years to see so that he can rest in peace. The kids help Madeline and Pepito pull off a clever trick that involves a convincing costume and a bit of dramatic theater. Of course Lord Cucuface is scared silly, so that by the final page, “a girl and a boy and a ghost were peeping / at a rare and brilliant sight, / a comet streaking through the night.” Encore, Madeline! Ages 3 – 8 (Kirkus Review)
Ol’ Clip-Clop
By: Patricia McKissack
With the cadence of a true storyteller, Newbery Honor author Patricia McKissack (The Dark-Thirty) describes a haunting to rival the headless horseman, in time for Halloween and just right for a year-round fright. It’s Friday the 13th in October 1741 New England, and John Leep shuts his shop early in order to toss out his tenant, the widow Mayes. The thought makes him smile. “Smiling didn’t come easy to a man like John Leep,” writes McKissack, “He had a mean streak in him that ran the length of his long, thin body.” Eric Velasquez depicts the landlord in a suspicious-looking posture, engulfed by dusk shadows. En route on his steed, John Leep hears someone in pursuit (“Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop”), yet finds no one behind him each time he turns around. Still, whenever he resumes his ride, he hears “the muffled sound of another horse’s hooves.”
McKissack’s skilled pacing and eerie refrain build the tension as Velasquez deepens the darkness; only John Leep’s stricken face and white ruffled collar and cuffs reflect the moonlight. At the door of the widow Mayes, the artist uses golden light to convey the woman’s kindness as she hands over her rent. Leep’s fear sends the money skittering across the floor. The suspense mounts as he retreats (Clippity-cloppity, clippity-cloppity, clippity-cloppity”), and readers can predict that justice will be done. Velasquez’s final terrifying image will linger in readers’ minds. This will be a favorite read-aloud all year long. Ages 4 – 8 (Shelf Awareness)
The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1)
By: Jonathan Stroud
In what has come to be called “the Problem, ” the British Isles have become plagued with ghostly Visitors in this highly entertaining first book in Stroud’s Lockwood & Co. series. Since children and young teenagers are most able to sense the ghosts, psychically gifted youths are employed by agencies large and small, and use iron chains, magnesium flares, and salt bombs to contain and dispatch the Visitors. Narrator Lucy Carlyle has moved to London following a ghost-hunting mission gone very wrong, and her luck improves when she joins a small, independent outfit run by the dashing Anthony Lockwood and his studious and exasperating (to Lucy) partner, George Cubbins. Stroud (the Bartimaeus series) shows his customary flair for blending deadpan humor with thrilling action, and the fiery interplay among the three agents of Lockwood & Co. invigorates the story (along with no shortage of creepy moments). Stroud plays with ghost story conventions along the way, while laying intriguing groundwork that suggests that the Problem isn’t the only problem these young agents will face in books to come. The living can be dangerous, too. Ages 8 – 12 (Publisher’s Weekly)
The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root
By: Christopher Pennell
This delightful first novel tells the tale of Carly Bean Bitters, an orphan who only sleeps during the day. Living with an uncaring aunt, the 11-year-old is lonely until a violin-playing rat named Lewis recruits her for his moonlit musical trio. She meets a number of his friends who are in danger from owls that are suddenly hostile. She also encounters the dangerous Griddlebeast, intent on destroying Whistle Root Woods. It’s up to Carly; her new friend, Green; and his granny to save the precious forest. Charming black-and-white illustrations add to the overall effect of the story, which will remind readers of beloved works by Kate DiCamillo and E. B. White. Pennell offers marvelous characters, incorporates a mythical story within the story, gives readers a suspenseful plot, and creates a genuinely creepy and amoral villain. It’s all rather old-fashioned and quite lovely. Ages 9 – 12 (School Library Journal)
How to Catch a Bogle
By: Catherine Jinks
This quasi-Victorian, somewhat gothic fantasy is a satisfying confection. Apprenticed to Alfred the Bogler, Birdie’s task is to use her clear singing voice to lure resident bogles out of hiding so Alfred can destroy them. The pair makes a decent living doing away with the child-eating creatures, but then educated, well-meaning Miss Eames steps in. Miss Eames wants to study bogles scientifically, but soon she has another aim — to educate Birdie for a safer, more genteel profession that can last into adulthood. Then the worst happens: Birdie is captured and imprisoned in an insane asylum by dreadful Dr. Morton, who thinks nothing of feeding children to bogles to further his megalomaniacal aims. Jinks is an assured storyteller: character, plot, and style develop with buoyant, pleasing momentum, and her rendition of working-class English dialect reads accessibly. While this is fantasy — somewhat similar in flavor to Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite tales — factual elements of the period undergird and strengthen setting and story line. Birdie is a bright, stalwart heroine whose limitless font of haunting ballads tinges the story with melancholy. Ages 9 – 12 (Horn Book Magazine)
Constable & Toop
By: Gareth Jones
Something mysterious and terrible is happening throughout Victorian London: Ghosts are disappearing. When this reaches the attention of the Ghost Bureau, the diligent but clueless Mr. Lapsewood, a paranormal paper-pusher, is sent to investigate, and what he discovers is grave. The Black Rot has arrived–a voracious spiritual infestation whereby empty haunted houses suck in unsuspecting ghosts and imprison them. Lapsewood’s investigation weaves through the plotlines of several other memorable characters–both living and dead–including an undertaker’s son who can see ghosts, a serial throat-slasher reminiscent of Jack the Ripper, an evangelical exorcist, and many more. The living and dead must work together if they hope to destroy the Black Rot–before it destroys both the ghost and human worlds. This highly atmospheric and bitingly funny ghost story by successful British author Gareth P. Jones will delight fans of Eva Ibbotson and Neil Gaiman. Ages 9 – 12 (Publisher’s Marketing)
The Grimm Conclusion
By: Adam Gidwitz
Once upon a time, fairy tales were grim.
Cinderella’s stepsisters got their eyes pecked out by birds.
Rumpelstiltskin ripped himself in half.
And in a tale called “The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage,” a mouse, a bird and a sausage all talk to each other. Yes, the sausage talks. (Okay, I guess that one’s not that grim…)
Those are the real fairy tales.
But they have nothing on the story I’m about to tell.
This is the darkest fairy tale of all. Also, it is the weirdest. And the bloodiest.
It is the grimmest tale I have ever heard.
And I am sharing it with you.
Two children venture through forests, flee kingdoms, face ogres and demons and monsters, and, ultimately, find their way home. Oh yes, and they may die. Just once or twice.
That’s right.
Fairy tales
Are
Awesome.
Ages 10 – Up (Publisher’s Marketing)