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Do You Dare to Read These?

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VERY SCARY Halloween books (Grade 4 and up)

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  • Goosebumps

    R.L. Stine

    Paperback (Scholastic, Sept. 1, 2003)
    After purchasing a frightening Halloween mask, young Carley Beth tries it on and discovers to her horror that she is unable to remove it from her face.
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  • Skeleton Tree

    Kim Ventrella

    Hardcover (Scholastic Press, Sept. 26, 2017)
    Twelve-year-old Stanly knows the bone growing in his yard is a little weird, but that's okay, because now he'll have the perfect photo to submit to the Young Discoverer's Competition. With such a unique find, he's sure to win the grand prize.But, oddly, the bone doesn't appear in any photos. Even stranger, it seems to be growing into a full skeleton . . . one that only children can see. There's just one person who doesn't find any of this weird--Stanly's little sister. Mischievous Miren adopts the skeleton as a friend, and soon, the two become inseparable playmates. When Miren starts to grow sick, Stanly suspects that the skeleton is responsible and does everything in his power to drive the creature away. However, Miren is desperate not to lose her friend, forcing Stanly to question everything he's ever believed about life, love, and the mysterious forces that connect us.
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  • Skeleton Creek

    Patrick Carman

    Hardcover (Scholastic Press, March 1, 2009)
    A breakthrough new series from bestselling author Patrick Carman, featuring text and technology in an innovative new way.Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see. In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts -- Ryan's text in the book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.
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  • The Headless Cupid

    Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Alton Raible

    Hardcover (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Sept. 15, 2009)
    When the four Stanley children meet Amanda, their new stepsister, they’re amazed to learn that she studies witchcraft. It’s not long before Amanda promises to give witchcraft lessons to David, Jamie, and the twins. But that’s when unusual things start happening in their old house. David suspects Amanda of causing mischief, until the children learn that the house really was haunted long ago. Legend has it that a ghost cut the head off of a wooden cupid on the stairway. Has the ghost returned to strike again?
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  • Skeleton Man

    Joseph Bruchac

    Hardcover (HarperCollins, Aug. 21, 2001)
    A chilling middle grade novel featuring a brave young girl, missing parents, and a terrifying stranger, based on a Native American legend. R.L. Stine, New York Times bestselling author of the Goosebumps series, raved, "This book gave ME nightmares!”Molly’s father, who grew up on the Mohawk Reserve of Akwesasne, always had the best scary stories. One of her favorites was the legend of Skeleton Man, a gruesome tale about a man with such insatiable hunger he ate his own flesh before devouring those around him.But ever since her parents mysteriously vanished, those spooky tales have started to feel all too real.Don't miss The Legend of Skeleton Man: a spine-tingling collection of Skeleton Man and its sequel, The Return of Skeleton Man!
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  • Coraline

    Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean

    Hardcover (HarperCollins, July 1, 2002)
    The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring.... In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.Only it's different.At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.
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  • The Witch of Blackbird Pond

    Elizabeth George Speare

    Paperback (Sandpiper, Jan. 10, 2011)
    Kit Tyler is marked by suspicion and disapproval from the moment she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial Connecticut in 1867. Alone and desperate, she has been forced to leave her beloved home on the island of Barbados and join a family she has never met. Torn between her quest for belonging and her desire to be true to herself, Kit struggles to survive in a hostile place. Just when it seems she must give up, she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit’s friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed by the colonists to be a witch, proves more taboo than she could have imagined and ultimately forces Kit to choose between her heart and her duty.Elizabeth George Speare’s Newbery Award–winning novel portrays a heroine whom readers will admire for her unwavering sense of truth as well as her infinite capacity to love.
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  • The Graveyard Book

    Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Margaret Atwood

    Hardcover (HarperCollins, Sept. 30, 2008)
    The original hardcover edition of a perennial favorite, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which has sold more than one million copies and is the only novel to win both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal. This middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 6, especially during homeschooling. It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place—he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians' time as well as their ghostly teachings—such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him.Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? The Graveyard Book is the winner of the Newbery Medal, the Carnegie Medal, the Hugo Award for best novel, the Locus Award for Young Adult novel, the American Bookseller Association’s “Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book,” a Horn Book Honor, and Audio Book of the Year.
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  • Akata Witch

    Nnedi Okorafor

    Hardcover (Viking Juvenile, April 14, 2011)
    Read Nnedi Okorafor's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community. Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing-she is a "free agent," with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?
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  • The Skeleton Tree

    Iain Lawrence

    Hardcover (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, Jan. 5, 2016)
    A modern-day adventure and classic in the making, in the vein of The Call of the Wild, Hatchet, and The Cay, by award-winning author Iain Lawrence. A Junior Library Guild Selection Less than forty-eight hours after twelve-year-old Chris sets off on a sailing trip down the Alaskan coast with his uncle, their boat sinks. The only survivors are Chris and a boy named Frank, who hates Chris immediately. Chris and Frank have no radio, no flares, no food. Suddenly, they’ve got to forage, fish, and scavenge the shore for supplies. Chris likes the company of a curious, friendly raven more than he likes the prickly Frank. But the boys have to get along if they want to survive. Because as the days get colder and the salmon migration ends, survival will take more than sheer force of will. Eventually, in the wilderness of Alaska, the boys discover an improbable bond—and the compassion that might truly be the path to rescue.
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  • Doll Bones

    Holly Black, Eliza Wheeler

    Paperback (Margaret K. McElderry Books, April 14, 2015)
    Discover the Newbery Honor winner Doll Bones, from Holly Black, the cocreator of the Spiderwick Chronicles. 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 NYPL “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.” A People Magazine “Best New Kids Book.” Six starred reviews!Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen—and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave. Zach and Alice and Poppy set off on one last adventure to lay the Queen’s ghost to rest. But nothing goes according to plan, and as their adventure turns into an epic journey, creepy things begin to happen. Is the doll just a doll or something more sinister? And if there really is a ghost, will it let them go now that it has them in its clutches? Doll Bones is a winner of the Newbery Honor, is the recipient of six starred reviews, was on five Best Book lists, and was called “perfect” by The New York Times.
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  • Skellig

    David Almond

    Hardcover (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, April 28, 2009)
    David Almond’s Printz Honor–winning novel is a captivating modern classic.Ten-year-old Michael was looking forward to moving into a new house. But now his baby sister is ill, his parents are frantic, and Doctor Death has come to call. Michael feels helpless. Then he steps into the crumbling garage. . . . What is this thing beneath the spiderwebs and dead flies? A human being, or a strange kind of beast never before seen? The only person Michael can confide in is his new friend, Mina. Together they carry the creature out into the light, and Michael’s world changes forever. . . .
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  • Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

    Ransom Riggs

    Hardcover (Quirk Books, June 7, 2011)
    Read the #1 New York Times best-selling series before it continues in A Map of Days. A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows. “A tense, moving, and wondrously strange first novel. The photographs and text work together brilliantly to create an unforgettable story.”—John Green, New York Times best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars “With its X-Men: First Class-meets-time-travel story line, David Lynchian imagery, and rich, eerie detail, it’s no wonder Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has been snapped up by Twentieth Century Fox. B+”—Entertainment Weekly “‘Peculiar’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Riggs’ chilling, wondrous novel is already headed to the movies.”—People “You’ll love it if you want a good thriller for the summer. It’s a mystery, and you’ll race to solve it before Jacob figures it out for himself.”—Seventeen
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  • Ghost Boys

    Jewell Parker Rhodes

    Hardcover (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, April 17, 2018)
    A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes. Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better. Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing. Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father's actions. Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.
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  • Anya's Ghost

    Vera Brosgol

    Hardcover (First Second, June 7, 2011)
    Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn’t kidding about the “Forever” part . . . Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya’s normal life might actually be worse. She’s embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she’s pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs. Or so she thinks. Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya’s Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut from author/artist Vera Brosgol. Anya's Ghost is a 2011 Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year title. One of School Library Journal’s Best Fiction Books of 2011.One of Horn Book’s Best Fiction Books of 2011.Winner of the 2012 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Young Adults (Ages 12-17)Book Details:Format: PaperbackPublication Date: 6/7/2011Pages: 224Reading Level: Age 12 and Up
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  • The Bone Witch

    Rin Chupeco

    Hardcover (Sourcebooks Fire, March 7, 2017)
    "A high-fantasy Memoirs of a Geisha, Chupeco's latest excels in originality" ―Kirkus ReviewsA story of scorned witches, sinister curses, and resurrection, The Bone Witch is the start of a dark fantasy trilogy, perfect for fans of Serpent & Dove and The Cruel Prince.Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price...When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother, Fox, from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha―one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles...and make a powerful choice.Riveting and atmospheric, The Bone Witch is perfect for readers looking for witch novels for adults and teens stories with diverse representation and multicultural influences dark fantasy YA books and series original worldbuilding and captivating writingPraise for The Bone Witch: "A fantasy lover's fantasy" ―Foreword Reviews"Mesmerizing. Chupeco (The Suffering) does a magnificent job of balancing an intimate narrative perspective with sweeping worldbuilding, crafting her tale within a multicultural melting pot of influences as she presses toward a powerful cliffhanger."―Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review"Chupeco delights us with a fascinating world and a rich atmosphere for a story that is exceptionally written from beginning to end."―Buzzfeed"Readers who enjoy immersing themselves in detail will revel in Chupeco's finely wrought tale. Game of Thrones fans may see shades of Daenerys Targaryen in Tea, as she gathers a daeva army to unleash upon the world. Whether she is in the right remains a question unanswered, but the ending makes it clear her story is only beginning." ―Booklist The Bone Witch Trilogy: The Bone Witch (Book 1) The Heart Forger (Book 2) The Shadowglass (Book 3)
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