Books for Halloween

Looking for a spooky read to get you in the Halloween spirit?  Try one of these... if you dare!

The School is Alive! by Jack Chabert (Eerie Elementary #1)

Sam Graves discovers that his elementary school is alive and plotting against the students, and,as hall monitor, it is his job to protect them--but he will need some help from his friends.

The Night Gardener: A Scary Story by Jonathan Auxier

Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house.

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Pat McKissack

A collection of ghost stories with African American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable.

Chilling Tales of Horror: Dark Graphic Short Stories by Pedro Rodriguez

Stories include: The hand / Guy de Maupassant -- Sir Dominick's bargain / Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu -- The house of nightmare / Edward Lucas White -- The vampire / John William Polidori -- House B... on Camden Hill / Catherine Crowe -- The body snatcher / Robert Louis Stevenson -- The black cat / Edgar Allan Poe.

Scary Stories for Halloween

Halloween is just days away!  Read some scary stories to get you in the spirit of things...

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.

Haunted Houses by Robert San Souci

A collection of ten chilling tales about nontraditional haunted houses: a mansion full of pirate treasure, a ghost trapped in a mysterious dollhouse, a boy whose vacation house comes complete with people-eating spiders, and many more.

Behind the Bookcase by Mark Steensland

Sarah, her brother Billy, and her parents are moving into her deceased grandmother's house for the summer in order to fix it up and sell it, but this is a house of locked rooms and many dark and dangerous secrets.

Goosebumps Wanted: The Haunted Mask by R.L. Stine

When she discovers an evil mask at the bottom of a trunk and puts it on, LuAnn's Halloween turns into a real nightmare because only an act of unbelievable kindness can remove it.

Origami Yoda Read Alikes

I hope you've been enjoying The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (our November book). Featuring text and hand drawn cartoon illustrations, it's part of a new trend in books for young readers. Here are a few books created in a similar style that you might also want to read:

Big Nate: In a Class By Himself by Lincoln Peirce (2010)

Supremely confident middle school student Nate Wright manages to make getting detention from every one of his teachers in the same day seem like an achievement.

Spaceheadz by Jon Scieszka (2010)

On his first day at Brooklyn's P.S. 858, fifth-grader Michael K. is teamed with two very strange students, and while he gradually comes to believe they are aliens who need his help, he has trouble convincing anyone else of the truth.


Justin Case: School, Drool, and Other Daily Disasters by Rachel Vail (2010)

It's the start of the school year, and nothing feels right to Justin. He didn't get the teacher he wanted, he's not in the same class as his best friend, and his little sister, Elizabeth, is starting kindergarten at his school. Elizabeth doesn't seem nervous at all. Justin is very nervous about third grade. And to top it off, he's lost his favorite stuffed animal, but he can't tell anyone, because technically he's too old to still have stuffed animals. Right?

The Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow (2010)

Two best friends embark on a project to study the behavior and taste of the popular girls at their elementary school so that by the time they get to middle school they too will be in the right crowd. Novel appears in the form of a scrapbook.

Books for Halloween

Looking for a spooky story to get you in the spirit of Halloween? Try one of these ghostly tales...

The Ghost's Grave by Peg Kehret

Apprehensive about spending the summer in Washington State with his Aunt Ethel when his parents get an overseas job, twelve-year-old Josh soon finds adventure when he meets the ghost of a coal miner.

Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories by Joan Lowery Nixon

A collection of stories about eerie encounters in various ghost towns across the United States. Each story is accompanied by an afterword about the actual town on which the story is based.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.

Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac

After her parents disappear and she is turned over to the care of a strange "great-uncle," Molly must rely on her dreams about an old Mohawk story for her safety and maybe even for her life.

Something Upstairs: A Tale of Ghosts by Avi

When he moves from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island, Kenny discovers that his new house is haunted by the spirit of a black slave boy who asks Kenny to return with him to the early nineteenth century and prevent his murder by slave traders.