In my high school creative writing class, my teacher once said that good writing was a bit like looking at a star. If you look directly at it, it gets a little fuzzy and hard to see. But if you look just off to the side, the star becomes vivid and clear. That, to me, is exactly the power of spooky stories for young readers. We all deal with monsters, to varying degrees, throughout our lives. Even kids. But if we look at it just off to the side, through the angle of a fun, spooky story, those monsters suddenly become much more comprehensible. More faceable. More beatable.
There are two things that I’ve always loved in my books: animal POV and spooky vibes.
This book has both! In so many ways, the things we face in our everyday life can feel like a horror story, or feel like monsters. For a fox, that would be things like rabies, hunters, fires, etc.
The prose was so good and so vivid, and I really worried with each different story how the little foxes were going to survive. One of my absolute favorites.
Christian McKay Heidicker draws inspiration from witches, vampires, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allen Poe to craft his middle-grade debut, a chilling portrait of survival and an unforgettable tale of friendship.
When fox kits Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they quickly learn that the world is a dangerous place filled with monsters. As the young foxes travel across field and forest in search of a home, they'll face a zombie who hungers for their tender flesh, a witch who wants to wear their skins, a ghost who haunts and hunts them, and so much more.
It’s been said by smarter people than me how writing horror for kids isn’t about scaring them, it’s about showing them how brave they are.
A Monster Calls is the perfect illustration of that. The scariness and the spookiness are a stand-in for the real-life horrors that this kid is facing. Kids deal with a lot, and this book is the perfect example of how to survive when the worst happens.
The artwork too—wow! I wish I could get some of this artwork to hang on my walls. Absolutely gorgeous book.
The bestselling novel and major film about love, loss and hope from the twice Carnegie Medal-winning Patrick Ness.
Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. Patrick Ness takes the final idea of the late, award-winning writer Siobhan Dowd and weaves an extraordinary and heartbreaking…
Sometimes the scariest thing about monsters is how much we relate to them. Or how much we want to listen to them. That’s exactly what’s being explored in The Nest by Kenneth Oppel.
There’s a surreal quality to this story, as the wasps outside the boy's window begin talking to him. We think their intentions are good at first, but the creepiness builds and builds until it’s almost overpowering. Until the main character doesn’t know if he can resist any longer.
This is a perfect story about finding the thing inside us that’s stronger than any monster.
'The first time I saw them, I thought they were angels.' The baby is sick. Mom and Dad are sad. And all Steve has to do is say, "Yes" to fix everything. But yes is a powerful word. It is also a dangerous one. And once it is uttered, can it be taken back? Treading the thin line between dreams and reality, Steve is stuck in a nightmare he can't wake up from and that nobody else understands. And all the while, the wasps' nest is growing, and the 'angel' keeps visiting Steve in the night.
I still think about the setting of The Ash House all the time.
It is so vivid and so real. The eeriness and spookiness of this place starts from the first page, even the first sentence. We know something is off here in the ash house, and we watch as the main character starts being subsumed by the other kids here.
We worry as he starts losing his identity. But this is a powerful and haunting story about listening to yourself and remembering yourself no matter what else is going on around you, and no matter what anyone else believes.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children meets Lord of the Flies in the exciting debut from Angharad Walker. 'A mesmerising other-worldly story that got deep under my skin - I couldn't put it down.' JASBINDER BILAN, author of Asha & the Spirit Bird
'Dark, tense and intoxicating ... Seriously exciting.' LUCY STRANGE, author of The Ghost of Gosswater
A new boy arrives at the Ash House. He can't remember his name - or why he's been sent there.
Given the name Sol, and troubled by a mystery pain that no medicine can cure, he joins the gang of children living…
Who doesn’t love a creepy doll story, right? And in this book, it’s done perfectly. But even that, what’s most powerful about this story is the journey the group of kids goes through as they try to restore this doll to its proper place and lay it to rest.
So many middle grade books are about that transitional moment from childhood to…something more grown up. That’s very much the case in this book, but we look at that transition and that challenge via this journey to restore the dolls' bones from whence they came.
My name is Eleanor Kerchner. You can call me the Queen. I died in 1895. Now it's time to play.
A chilling ghost story by the bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black.
Recipient of a Newbery Honor Award. An ALA Notable Book. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book. A School Library Journal Best Book. A Booklist Editor's Choice Books for Youth. A Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book. A 2013 Goodreads Choice award nominee. A People Magazine 'Best New Kids Book'.
Penny Hope used to be brave, but that was before she met the Fear Maker. Years later, he still haunts her dreams—a tall, thin man with red eyes, in a haunted house in the woods, who devours human souls and leaves his victims' eyes hollow and empty. Penny’s beloved grandma tells her to write down these nightmares as poems in her notebook. But then Penny starts seeing blank-eyed people in the waking world, too.
As more people fall prey to the Fear Maker, Penny must gather her courage once and for all to save the souls of those she loves. With the help of her notebook, she ventures to the Fear Maker’s house. But the house is a labyrinth of nightmares and tricks—and the Fear Maker’s fun is just beginning.
I have been fascinated by the richness of fairy tales since I was a child. The fantasy writing offers endless possibilities to nourish my mind’s eye and pearls of wisdom that I can transfer to real life. I remember from childhood that I cried reading the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. This childhood memory never left me. Fantasy writing is interwoven with the realm of nature and beings other than humans that offer a tapestry for the tradition of storytelling and nature writing, which I found a fascinating field to explore. I hope you can find the same in the books on this list.
Serendipity is a magical story told by a grandmother to a granddaughter, introducing us to the traditional way of living of the Scottish Travellers and their Cant language.
A fantasy tale for children of 8 years old and older inspired by three real places in Scotland. Serendipity takes us to Helge's Hole in Forres, the Hermitage Forest in Dunkeld, and Glen Lyon in Perth on a quest for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. It's a story of a grandmother's greater love for a granddaughter, a mother for a daughter, and the boundless bounty of the natural realm for each one of…
Not so long ago, nomadic communities in Scotland told stories around camp fires and slept in bow tents made of hazel and canvas. In this book, their culture is introduced through Cant's vocabulary, a dialect spoken by Scottish travellers. Following them, Serendipity takes you to Helge's Hole in Forres, Hermitage Forest in Dunkeld, and Glen Lyon in Perth, meandering through the valleys and cragged peaks of the Scottish Highlands, in a quest for Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
Dive into Scottish culture as the old grandmother, Julia, recounts to her granddaughter Gaia the tale of a little girl of pure heart.…
