Spooky season is upon us, and it's time to explore the best Halloween books for kids to capture their imagination. Whatever your kid’s age, there are so many spooky stories to excite them. From things that go bump in the night to fantastical worlds full of creepy but fascinating characters, your children won’t be able to put down their books this year. With long, dark nights creeping in, why not settle down with your children and read them a spine-chilling story. You’ll make memories that’ll stay with them forever.
Ready to Explore the Best Spooky Stories for Kids
Children love the thrill of being spooked. It excites them and ignites their imagination, furthering their creativity. Reading scary stories to your children also helps develop their emotional capabilities, such as regulating and understanding their own feelings. But most of all, Halloween books for children are super fun! With page after page of captivating characters and hair-raising antics, your wee ones will be hooked.
Ready to get your kids into the Halloween spirit? We’ve made it easy for you and rounded up our favourite ghost stories for children. Here are children’s books for Halloween split into each age group:
Best Halloween books for wee kids aged 3-6
Best Halloween books for kids aged 6-9
Best Halloween books for tweens aged 9-12
Best Halloween Books for Wee Kids Aged 3-6
When choosing the best gift for kids this Halloween, i.e. choosing scary stories for children, it’s essential to know your audience. And for this age group, it's all about smiles, not screams. We're talking hair-raising and entertaining antics they’ll want to read about over and over again. Enchanting illustrations and cute jumpy moments are the best options for these wee ones. You'll find just that with our selection of best Halloween books for kids below. All of these books are not just scary but also help promote literacy at home.
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Ten Little Monsters
This spooky gem is perfect for your little monsters below the age of 6. The first thing we love about this book is that it’s jam-packed with jazzy illustrations to keep small children engaged. The next thing we love is the interactive storyline that’s irresistible to young minds. Following the ten little monsters on their crazy adventure, your kids will enjoy spotting giant spiders, howling werewolves and other scaries in the night.
There's also an opportunity for counting, searching, and noisy rhyming, which younger children love at Halloween or any other time of the year!
Room on the Broom
Halloween vibes and belly laughs is what this book will bring.
A funny story about friendships with lots of animal encounters, your wee ones are sure to enjoy this broom ride, too. Introduce your children to this witch and her cat. Plus, a bird, a dog, a frog ... and a greedy dragon! The story has a well-paced rhythm and enticing rhymes to truly captivate children’s attention. With its spectacular illustrations, you'll also be drawn into this bewitching story and will enjoy reading it to your kids night after night.
Four Silly Skeletons
Introduce your wee ones to these four silly skeletons named Fred, Sid, Belle and Bill and follow their accident-prone antics. This book is bright and bold, from the quirky characters to the super appealing and lively illustrations. These silly skeletons experience many mishaps, including overflowing baths and banana skin slip, all set to a well-written rhyming verse. It’s a lighthearted tale complete with silly spiders, bats, mice and robots that will bring fun and giggles to any bedtime.
Little Faces: Happy Halloween!
This book is non-scary yet perfect for the spooky season. Little hands will enjoy holding this Halloween book thanks to bold illustrations introducing them to different emotions. Featuring a cheeky spider, a ghost, a witch, a skeleton and a pumpkin, this book is distinctly Halloween-esque. Enjoy it through this cosy time of year to develop reading and sensory skills.
Pick a Pumpkin
This is the perfect book for warm, cosy autumnal evenings. With a rhyming story and beautiful illustrations capturing the delicious feeling of the Halloween season, this book is a treat for you as well as your children. It is descriptive and thorough, making a very satisfying read for little ones who can follow along on this journey from choosing a pumpkin to carving a jack-o-lantern.
Grimelda the Very Messy Witch
Wee ones will love Grimelda, a happy-go-lucky witch who lives in a cosy but very messy house. There are many things to discover in this book for your little readers, including helping Grimelda search for her pickle root. It’s a fun and silly read with absolutely no scaries but still totally on theme for Halloween.
Just Say Boo!
Looking for the best Halloween books for kids that are charming, interactive and fun? If so, this book has all that and more. If your little one feels scared around this time of year, this book is a way of dispelling their fears in favour of fun. “For if a skeleton groans as she rattles her bones, what do you say? … BOO!”
A delightful read for parents and children to really warm up this spooky season.
Never Kick a Ghost and Other Silly Chillers
Halloween for children is all about gore! And this book doesn't disappoint with its fun and gruesome descriptions of characters, including a big slobbery monster with long green fingers and floppy purple lips. Let your kids enjoy these not-so-scary, bite-sized stories full of entertaining rhymes for long-lasting laughter and fun.
Best Halloween Books for kids aged 6-9
Children at this age have had their fair share of the spookies. This time of the year makes for an excellent opportunity to expand on their reading ability due to the captivating, spooky stories they'll love to read. While they still enjoy detailed illustrations, they’re veering away from simplistic rhyming stories to ones with slightly scarier and thrilling plots.
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But they still need it to be fun and lighthearted. Luckily, there are many suitable spooky stories for kids out there.
Molly Maybe and the Ghost Train
This one is for kids who love adventure. Your children will get lost in the magical world full of ghoulish characters that’ll have them hooked till the very end. Let your young ones join Molly Maybe on her quest to find out what the bad smell is in her hometown as she ventures into the unknown with her trusty sidekick Waggy Burns where lots of spookiness awaits.
The Night Before Halloween
A spooky spin on the classic poem ‘The Night Before Christmas’. This delightful and bewitching story features little monsters of all shapes and sizes, including a ghost family, goofy goblins, witches and mummies. Your children will giggle as these monsters share in Halloween fun and will gasp as human trick or treaters accidentally arrive at their door.
The characters come alive with fantastic illustrations making this book a firm Halloween favourite for years to come.
Wish for a Witch
Get ready for long nights of reading because your children won’t be able to put this one down. Elsie Pickles is always up to mischief, and after her encounter with a witch named Magenta, she's in for lots of magical trouble. This will have a proud place on your bookshelf every Autumn because it will keep your young ones entertained for hours.
Night of the Living Ted
Your little terrors will love this cheeky comedy-horror fit for Halloween. Presenting a less than cuddly teddy bear who comes alive on Halloween presents a zany and engaging read for everyone. Perfect for pre-teens, this naughty bear will make dreary nights brighter and full of laughter.
Mr Tickle and the Scary Halloween
When searching for the best Halloween books for kids, you have to consider the classics. The Mr Men series has been around for decades and is still going strong. This spooky twist on a classic features the well-loved character Mr Tickle on his Halloween adventures. It’s a short read but is still super entertaining for younger children.
Your little ones will love the bold and colourful illustrations we also enjoyed as children. So, join Mr Tickle on his spooky journey with Little Miss Scary and start or add this to your Mr Men collection.
First Prize for The Worst Witch
This witchy book is an oldie but a goldie. She's been around for decades trying to find her way in the world of witchcraft, and now Mildred is back and ready to get herself into mischief. With the same unfortunate but hilarious mishaps as the rest of the series, your tweens will adore Mildred Hubble and her disastrous attempts at becoming head girl at Miss Cackle's Academy.
Twelve Minutes to Midnight
This is a children’s book that parents love to read, too. Set in an orphanage, it stars Penny Tredwell, a feisty 13-year-old orphan with psychic abilities that play havoc on the Victorian streets of Britain. Work through the challenging storylines together, or let your young ones take on this tale with their imagination.
Rules for Vampires
This dazzling Halloween book for children is a cross between The Nevermoor and Hotel Transylvania. Set in a world with haunted castles, dark forests alive with talking spiders and a vampire girl called Leo, children will love this amusing tale full of spooky moments. Reading this lively story will turn your child into a wee bookworm, and this book will be a firm favourite on their bookshelf for years to come.
The Witches
Our Halloween books for kids guide wouldn’t be complete without one from the master of children’s stories, Roald Dahl. This book isn't a fairytale. It's a frightening story about real witches. Not the witches you read about in Halloween books, but the witches living among us in society (and they really, really, really hate children)!
Dahl’s terrifying characters in The Witches have been etched into our minds for almost 40 years and are still very much alive today. This book is a guaranteed blood-curdling re-read for years to come. So, share one of the best scary stories for children with your own and let them get seriously spooked for Halloween.
If you don’t like really scarry books, you might like “How to Avoid Witches” by Roald Dahl. The ultimate, funny, and not so scary guide to avoid witches that might be hiding everywhere.
The Howling Hag
This is a children’s crime book with a twist - it’s all about magic crime! Featuring a sassy talking cat called Nightshade with a nose for cracking crimes of the magic kind and Raven, a loveable girl who's the underdog in her magical family. A mystery-themed plot will have your young ones getting lost in the pages and following the enchanting twists and turns with Nightshade and Raven.
Best Halloween Books for Tweens aged 9-12
Things can get spine-chillingly spooky for this age group. We’re talking layered, harrowing storylines full of creepy characters. Your tweens may have to sleep with the light on after reading these children’s ghost stories, but the long-lasting cosy Halloween memories will be worth it.
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The Screaming Staircase
The first instalment from the Lockwood & Co series has a terrifying plot and isn't for the faint-hearted. But tweens can handle anything! Especially this ghost story about the most haunted house in England full of menacing ghouls. They'll enjoy this toe-curling, goosebump-inducing, sinister plot with compelling characters making Halloween extra spooktacular.
Dare you enter...Shadow Forest
A perfect Halloween book for the perfect Halloween night. We recommend it only for the brave ones! Samuel and Martha enter a shadow forest, full of one-eyed trolls, witches, and other monsters. Will they find the way out? This is a darkish, sad but also a humorous book that deserve to be added to your collection.
The Demon Undertaker
Reading this horror story on a dark evening provides the perfect Halloween atmosphere for your tween - but they probably won’t go to bed afterwards! However, they’ll enjoy this satisfyingly gruesome mystery that will delight them from the very first page. With many twists and turns, your tween's imagination will run wild along with the villains on the loose in London.
It’s dark, eerie, and thrilling, making the perfect addition to your tween’s Halloween collection.
Where Monsters Lie
This is a thrilling horror story like no other. A mystery plot fit for Halloween, this book is full of legends, so-called monsters in the loch, missing mothers and slug infestations. Your tweens will be so gripped by this clever yet sinister plot that you might request to read it yourself.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down
This instalment of the best selling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is seriously spookylicious. As hilarious as ever, this one is set on All Hallows Eve, giving it that scary edge your tween wants at this time of year. With the scaries coming at Greg from all angles on this terrifying night, it's a mix of funny and spooky with his usual embarrassing antics, making it a thoroughly entertaining read.
Danger Really Is Everywhere
If you have a reluctant reader on your hands, this book is for you. This critically acclaimed book is jaw-achingly funny with laugh-out-loud moments from start to finish. Poking fun at today’s health and safety culture, your tweens will relish the surreal silliness and enjoy the well-paced plot. It fits in perfectly for Halloween, thanks to its gory descriptions and guides on how to tell if your teacher is a vampire.
The Witches Vacuum Cleaner
A book of short stories by the beloved author Terry Pratchett known for creating intricate, fantastical worlds full of marvellous characters. Still, he doesn't disappoint with this book. Featuring 14 chaotic, spooky stories that'll enthral your tweens during cold autumn nights. Packed full of magic and mayhem with enchanting illustrations, these wizards, witches and pirates are all as imagination-gripping as Pratchett's previous characters.
Goosebumps: The Haunted Mask
We recommend all RL Stine's children’s ghost stories, but this one has been touted as one of the scariest from his Goosebumps book series. With somewhat relatable characters and a spine-chilling plot, your tweens will be begging for more Goosebumps books to add to their collection. This story is set on Halloween when Carly Beth hunts and finds the perfect, scariest mask for the occasion. But, it's what happens next that's truly petrifying.
Frankenstein
This classic horror book is an ambitious read for your advanced reader. Although not too complicated, it possesses an eeriness and intelligent plot suited to a pre-teen with mature reading skills. This book is timeless for a reason and resonates with all readers old and young due to the infamous characters and macabre tale that unfolds.
Whether tweens read it themselves or have it read to them as a family, Frankenstein is a quintessential Halloween book that has the power to send shivers down everyone's spine.
Ready to add some Halloween books to your subscription?
Your Wee Bookworms subscription should reflect all seasons to enrich the growing minds of your children. Introduce them to the realm of horror at any age and let us help you find the perfect fit for their abilities. Spooky stories are stimulating, helping build imagination and reading skills.
So, why not add some of our favourites to your subscription in time for Halloween? Try it today to make cosy memories with your wee ones that’ll last a lifetime.
