Hi, Sweeteas,
What a glorious October! I’m looking forward to a delightfully spooky Halloween. I hope you are too! 😀
Here are two well-known authors who write creepy ghost stories for young people:
1- Mary Downing Hahn (http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/mdh/) has been writing books for children for more than 30 years. She is best known for her “not-too-creepy” ghost stories and mysteries such as Wait Till Helen Comes (AR 4.6)*, The Old Willis Place (AR 4.2), All the Lovely Bad Ones (AR 4.5), The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall (AR 4.4), Where I Belong (AR 4.2), and her most recent: Took (AR 4.3). My favorite is Wait Till Helen Comes:
Twelve-year-old Molly, her ten-year-old brother, Michael, their annoying seven-year-old stepsister, Heather, and their parents move to a country house that used to be a church and has a cemetery in the backyard. Soon after, Heather starts warning Molly and Michael that an angry ghost named Helen is going to come for them. Is the ghost real? Is it really coming for them? And what will it do to them–and to Heather–when it does? A suspenseful, creepy story!
2-Dan Poblocki (http://www.danpoblocki.com/) is a writer of mystery and horror books for young people. His creepy reads include The Stone Child (AR 5.2), The Nighmarys (AR 4.8), The Ghost of Graylock (AR 4.8), The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe (AR 4.8), The Book of Bad Things (AR 5.4), The House on Stone’s Throw Island (AR 5.3), and his most recent: Shadow House: The Gathering (first books in the series) (AR 5.1). I found The Book of Bad Things to be particularly creepy:
Cassidy Bean is spending the summer in upstate New York, in a peaceful town called Whitechapel. But peace disappears when Ursula Chambers, an old hermit and secret hoarder, passes away under strange circumstances. The people of Whitechapel greedily start claiming the items Ursula left behind, which causes Ursula’s ghost to start appearing all over town warning people to return her belongings to her creepy farmhouse. Cassidy decides to solve the mystery behind all the spooky incidents and discovers that there are more bad things in the world than anyone can imagine. This book gave me nightmares!
12 more spooky/creepy books you may enjoy:
The Halloween Tree (AR 4.7) by Ray Bradbury
The Graveyard Book (AR 5.1) by Neil Gaiman
The Night Gardener (AR 4.9) by Jonathan Auxier
The Doll Bones (AR 5.4) by Holly Black
How to Catch a Bogle Trilogy (AR 5.2) by Catherine Jinks
From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance (AR 5.3) by Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes (AR 4.8) by Ray Bradbury
Horowitz Horror (short stories) (AR 4.6) by Anthony Horowitz
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural (AR 4.6) by Patricia McKissack
Ghost Fever/Mal de Fantasma (AR 5.1) by Joe Hayes
Skeleton Man (AR 4.8) by Joseph Bruchac
Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness (AR 8.8) by Edgar Allan Poe
Look for these spooky books in your school or neighborhood library.
Happy reading!
*AR = Accelerated Reader reading level
“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?” -Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes
The Reading Café 