Bookology Magazine

Scary Short Story Collections and Novels for Middle Grade Readers

While Hal­loween is just weeks away, scary sto­ries are year-round favorites for many kids. Scary sto­ry col­lec­tions and stand-alone nov­els often appear on the best­seller lists in kid-lit pub­lish­ing. Authors Janet Fox and Con­nie Van Hov­en are both con­trib­u­tors to a new short sto­ry col­lec­tion: The Haunt­ed States of Amer­i­ca from Godwin/Macmillan. Cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Soci­ety of Children’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors (SCBWI) the book con­tains fifty-two dif­fer­ent sto­ries writ­ten by fifty-two dif­fer­ent authors. Plus, there are fifty-two unset­tling — okay, down­right unnerv­ing draw­ings by illus­tra­tor Solomon Hugh­es. End­less fright for ages 10 and up! Janet’s short sto­ry takes place in Con­necti­cut and Connie’s in Mon­tana. Read about their chill­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the book along with their sug­ges­tions for oth­er mid­dle grade hor­ror fiction.

The Haunted States of America

The Haunt­ed States of Amer­i­ca
sto­ries by Ellen Hop­kins, K.E. Lewis, Free­man Ng, Janet Fox, Con­stance Van Hov­en, Aixa Perez- Pra­do, Paul Lubaczews­ki, and many more
Godwin/Macmillan, 2024

From Con­nie: When SCBWI put out a call for scary short sto­ries that are “nation­al­ly known or rel­a­tive­ly unheard of, based in fact or based in local lore, cap­tur­ing the spooky side of the Unit­ed States,” I pon­dered sev­er­al ideas set in my adopt­ed home state of Mon­tana. While I have vis­it­ed more than a few eerie ghost towns across Mon­tana, I fig­ured this con­test was maybe look­ing for some­thing less pre­dictable. So, I did a deep dive into the fan­tas­tic nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non of icy “snow ghosts” found most­ly in north­ern Mon­tana. I come from a fam­i­ly of skiers and was aware of snow-laden trees and the lethal holes that can form under­neath them. While ski­ing in Col­orado as a teenag­er I was hit from behind, tum­bled down a steep slope, and lost con­scious­ness. I can only imag­ine the ter­ror of com­ing to and find­ing your­self trapped in a tree well — and thus my sto­ry of a REAL snow ghost was born. My ghost isn’t exact­ly friend­ly, but she is ready to lend a grue­some help­ing hand. I had so much fun writ­ing Snow Ghost with a Sil­ver Whis­tle, I just might write more spooky sto­ries. See, I was inves­ti­gat­ing a ceme­tery in a ghost town recent­ly when I turned around and noticed a small, decrepit but­ton-top shoe sit­ting on a grave. The grave belonged to a child from 1890…

From Janet: My Con­necti­cut sto­ry, The Lady in White, is based on leg­ends that sur­round the Union Ceme­tery, a cen­turies-old rest­ing place in Eas­t­on, Con­necti­cut. Many peo­ple have seen the ghost or ghosts that haunt the ceme­tery, and the descrip­tions of the appear­ance of one are too sim­i­lar to be coin­ci­dence: a young woman, dis­traught, with long dark hair and a flow­ing white gown, reach­ing for who­ev­er she encoun­ters. Her haunt­ings devel­oped greater fame after a pair of famous ghost hunters, Ed and Lor­raine War­ren, wrote about their own expe­ri­ences with her and said they believed she could have been a woman who died in child­birth and still seeks her baby. Indeed, some of the haunt­ings describe a sen­sa­tion of deep sor­row that per­me­ates the haunt­ed after con­tact. I lived in Con­necti­cut for my four years of high school and spent many oth­er years all over the state, and the qui­et glens and dark woods and ancient grave­yards reek of his­to­ry, long-gone peo­ples, and whis­pered secrets. It was easy for me to con­jure a sto­ry, espe­cial­ly after read­ing that one of the grave­stones in Union sports the fol­low­ing epi­graph: “Come, take my hand, my dear­est child. Now the wind is blow­ing wild/ As the dev­il plays his tune/ The end is near — you’ll all come soon.”

PS. An audio ver­sion of The Haunt­ed States of Amer­i­ca is com­ing out in Octo­ber. Just in time for Hal­loween events. For ages 10 and up.

More scary book rec­om­men­da­tions from Connie:

Scarewaves

Scare­waves
writ­ten by Trevor Hen­der­son
Scholas­tic, 2023

Eeeekkk, this book has a mon­ster for every­body! Take your pick from an evil scare­crow, a herd of zom­bie deer, a crow hag, vicious giant cen­tipedes, and a mys­te­ri­ous giant man with an evil grin — the author called it a “ric­tus grin.” (I had to look that word up and now, gulp, I can’t for­get it!)

The book starts with a series of indi­vid­ual sto­ries fea­tur­ing a stu­dent who is no longer alive or has just nar­row­ly escaped a fear­some event. Even­tu­al­ly six kids come togeth­er and join a group to try and stop the evil doings hap­pen­ing in their town. Read­ers will appre­ci­ate the sol­id friend­ship themes in this book.

The author, Trevor Hen­der­son, is an “inter­net hor­ror super­star” and I don’t know much about that part of his life. I do know, he is a creep­tas­tic writer of mid­dle grade hor­ror! I couldn’t put the book down, nei­ther could my 11-year-old grand­son. The sto­ry is total­ly set up for a sequel as the mys­tery is nev­er real­ly solved — just put on pause. For ages 10 and up.

Scary Stories for Young Foxes

Scary Sto­ries for Young Fox­es
writ­ten by Chris­t­ian McK­ay Hei­dick­er
Square Fish/Henry Holt, 2019

This sin­is­ter but tru­ly fas­ci­nat­ing col­lec­tion of inter­wo­ven sto­ries about two fam­i­lies of fox­es earned a New­bery Hon­or and I couldn’t agree more with the selec­tion. I was cap­ti­vat­ed by the char­ac­ters, the atten­tion paid to the nat­ur­al life of fox­es, and the some­times dark, some­times hero­ic themes. In the author’s own words: “All scary sto­ries have two sides. Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to lis­ten and wise enough to stay to the end, the sto­ries can shine a light on the good in the world. They can guide your muz­zles. They can help you survive.”

Note: You will also nev­er see Beat­rix Pot­ter in quite the same light ever again…

I can’t wait to dive into Book Two of the series: Scary Sto­ries for Young Fox­es: The City. (Square Fish/Henry Holt, 2022) For ages 9 – 12.

The Old Willis Place

The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Sto­ry Graph­ic Nov­el
writ­ten by Mary Down­ing Hahn
adapt­ed by Scott Peter­son, Mered­ith Lax­ton, Sien­na Har­al­son
Clar­i­on Books, 2024

Dive into the graph­ic nov­el ver­sion of a 2004 best sell­er by ven­er­a­ble spooky tale teller, Mary Down­ing Hahn, if you dare! Two “unusu­al” chil­dren live in the woods near an old man­sion har­bor­ing a res­i­dent ghost. Read­ers will try to fig­ure out Diana and Georgie’s trag­ic sto­ry as they make friends with the daugh­ter of the mansion’s newest care­tak­er. Heart­warm­ing, sad, and dark, the fast-mov­ing book delves into the con­se­quences of secrets and the pow­er of forgiveness.

The graph­ic for­mat helps rein­force com­pre­hen­sion and encour­ages sto­ry-telling skills. This book is one of sev­er­al new Mary Down­ing Hahn graph­ic nov­el adap­ta­tions. For ages 9 – 12.

Stinetingles
There is Something Strange about My Brain

Stinet­inglers
writ­ten by R.L. Stine
Square Fish/Macmillan, 2022

and

There is Some­thing Strange about My Brain: Writ­ing Hor­ror for Kids
writ­ten by R.L. Stine
Eru­di­tion / DiAn­ge­lo Pub­li­ca­tions, 2023

Couldn’t fin­ish this list with­out men­tion­ing vet­er­an hor­ror author, R. L. Stine … When I was a kid, I didn’t read scary sto­ries. I lived scary sto­ries! I grew up with six broth­ers who were con­stant­ly jump­ing out of clos­ets, mak­ing howl­ing nois­es from under the bed, putting spi­ders in my hair, etc. Fast for­ward to being a par­ent of a ten-year-old son who was a reluc­tant read­er. That is until the Goose­bumps rage. As an employ­ee of a children’s toy/bookstore, I had access to all the lat­est Goose­bumps books and soon my reluc­tant read­er couldn’t get his hands on new titles fast enough. In the years since, Mr. Stine has writ­ten over 300 books for kid read­ers. And my son is just about ready to share Goose­bumps and more R.L. Stine sto­ries with his kids.

Stinet­inglers has three books in the series so far, with a new one just out. For ages 8 – 12. Scary, but not over-the-top, with Stine’s trade­mark twists and humor and each sto­ry has a pref­ace that explains how the author got the idea, why he wrote it.

And for kids or adults who might aspire to write their own scary sto­ries check out Stine’s self-help book: There is Some­thing Strange about My Brain: Writ­ing Hor­ror for Kids. Writ­ten in part­ner­ship with Stine’s Mas­ter­class on writ­ing hor­ror. The book has sol­id infor­ma­tion, tips and resources, plus a fill-in-the-blanks activ­i­ty sec­tion. For ages 10 and up and, yes, for me, too. I know it’s going to help me write a sin­is­ter sto­ry about the antique shoe that sud­den­ly appeared in a ghost town cemetery …

More scary book rec­om­men­da­tions from Janet:

The Night Librarian

The Night Librar­i­an
writ­ten by Christo­pher Lin­coln
Dial Books for Young Read­ers, 2024

I love libraries and books about libraries, and I believe that graph­ic nov­els are an impor­tant por­tal to read­ing for many kids, so this one jumped out at me (in a spooky way, of course). It’s a sto­ry set in New York’s Pub­lic Library and fea­tur­ing sis­ter and broth­er Page and Turn­er, and their dis­cov­ery that with­in libraries are a spe­cial breed of librar­i­an whose job it is to keep the mag­ic of books inside their pages. The rich­ly col­ored illus­tra­tions are won­der­ful­ly done as visu­al cues for dif­fer­ing time­lines and view­points; famous and not-so-famous books are high­light­ed and giv­en quick syn­opses; and mys­te­ri­ous and often creepy vil­lains haunt the night­time stacks seek­ing to take over the library if not the world. Page and Turn­er become assis­tant Night Librar­i­ans to help try and foil this ter­ri­ble break­out. The end­ing is a super fun twist, and the kids learn a real-life les­son. And I espe­cial­ly love the way the author / illus­tra­tor casts the char­ac­ters — they are gen­der neu­tral, with phys­i­cal appear­ances that tru­ly are deceiv­ing. A quick read that’s per­fect for your reluc­tant read­er — and may even turn them on to some seri­ous­ly seri­ous tomes.

The Lost Library

The Lost Library
writ­ten by Rebec­ca Stead and Wendy Mass
Fei­wel & Friends, 2023

Did I men­tion that I love books about libraries? This stun­ning short book by two of our best mid­dle grade authors is a ghost sto­ry, a love sto­ry, a mys­tery and a grow­ing-up sto­ry that will grab any reader’s heart. Sweet and a quick read, it tells the tale of a library that was lost to a fire, a boy who wants to solve the puz­zle of the inci­dent, a cat who wit­nessed the event, and a librar­i­an who … well, no spoil­ers here. Suf­fice to say there are (gen­tle) ghosts. And a mys­tery. And a fam­i­ly sto­ry about a father and son, and the boy who has a hard time with the idea of grow­ing up. This nov­el is a fun mys­tery with an easy mag­i­cal edge and an excel­lent twist at the end, per­fect­ly hint­ed at for the dis­cern­ing read­er. Great for read­ers who love the lit­er­ary (poems play a role), and who favor lit­tle free libraries. Also great for read­ers who like spooky books that aren’t ter­ri­fy­ing. Books like this one slide by most read­ers in our fast-paced world, and they shouldn’t.

Not Quite a Ghost

Not Quite a Ghost
writ­ten by Anne Ursu
Walden Pond Press, 2024

Okay, this one is not (entire­ly) set in a library, although that’s where Vio­let Hart begins to learn some­thing about ghosts with a new friend, Will. Vio­let is sent to the library because, fol­low­ing a viral ill­ness, she is unable to recov­er and attend PE. New house, new school, Vio­let in a new bed­room with a hideous yel­low wall­pa­per and a weird vibe, and now, an ill­ness that keeps Vio­let down. Her phys­i­cal weak­ness and new school cre­ate a dis­tance between Vio­let and her for­mer friends, and that gap is the advan­tage that some­thing takes … okay, no spoil­ers here either! Just to say this book begins as a tale about the strug­gles of mid­dle grade (shift­ing friend­ships, awk­ward body changes, social mishaps) and ends with a real­ly creepy almost dis­as­trous encounter. Ursu’s under­ly­ing theme of chron­ic ill­ness fol­low­ing a virus is per­son­al, and not some­thing I’ve seen men­tioned before in mid­dle grade. Super spooky, this one is for read­ers who pre­fer to sleep with the lights on. A fun side note: Ursu pep­pers the sto­ry with names of schools, char­ac­ters, etc., with the names of well-known authors, many of whom may be friends of the author (e.g.: Phyl­lis Root Mid­dle School). See how many you can find!

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