Children's books for Halloween 👻
Can we read? Special edition on Halloween: 2024
I am a big holiday person. I learned this from my mother, who has always gone all out for holidays of all kinds, but it also fits with my life philosophy of celebrating everything one possibly can.
And Halloween is my Super Bowl. I am a Halloween person, through and through.
Maybe it’s because I’m a grownup who has never stopped believing in magic, not completely.
Maybe it’s because Halloween feels low-stakes — it’s just pure fun, and there’s very few ways it can go wrong. (I treat the week leading up to Halloween as an excuse to be even weirder than usual and let me tell you, you don’t have to wear a full-blown costume to bring delight to someone’s day. I have, at this point, a whole box of strange little outfit add-ons — cat-ear headbands, angel wings, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton t-shirt, wacky earrings — that I use as a personal challenge every year: can I make someone smile with whatever I happen to be wearing today?)
Last year I also made the marvelous (and insane) decision to host a Halloween Hunt on our two-acre property. I invited 75 people — I didn’t know we even knew 75 people — bought a five-foot purple tree with orange lights, did so much research on my wasp costume that even the antennas were correctly shaped, and 71 people came to my house 😱 It was freezing cold. I passed out mini flashlights, hollered directions to kids aged 2-14, and released the hounds to find hundreds of tiny things I’d scattered and hidden around the yard.
I made the difficult decision to skip it this year, and I’m close to devastated about it, but I am, for once, choosing my own well-being over pulling off some bonkers idea. (Though that will not stop me from wearing my costume — a bat; I have a thing for pollinators — everywhere I possibly can.)
Whatever you’re doing this season — whether you’re all-in like I am, or just kinda sorta in, sometimes, or prioritizing your mental and physical health over a garage full of purple twinkle lights no matter how hard that may be — I hope that you read some wonderfully spooky and fantastic books with the children in your life, but more than that, that you have fun. That you embrace this — and every other opportunity you have — to remember the child still inside you, and let yourself feel life’s magic, which is always there for the taking, but never more than this time of year.
Itty Bitty Betty Blob by Constance Lombardo, illustrated by Micah Player (2024)
Itty-Bitty Betty Blob is not your typical monster — rather than stomping in storms or trampling tulips, she rejoices at rainbows and dances among the dandelions. She tries to be different but it just doesn’t work — she is who she is.
When picture day arrives, Betty takes a detour on her way to school where she finds a whole gaggle of new friends who make her feel good in her (amorphous blob) skin, but when she ends up in front of the camera, she has to decide: will she try to fit in, or will she be her wonderful self?
Player’s black-and-white digital illustrations, with just a few splashes of color when Betty’s fully Betty, beautifully support Lombardo’s clear (though never overly didactic) messages about the importance of self-acceptance and confidence. What makes us weird is also what makes us us. Which is something we all need to hear.
We're Off to Find the Witch's House by Richard Krieb, illustrated by R.W. Alley (2005)
In this rollicking, rhyming read, replete with lots of lively linguistic fun, four friends set out to find the witch’s house (“Which house? The witch’s house!”) and they are not afraid. On their way they meet a classic lineup of Halloween characters: an owl, a skeleton, a Frankenstein, a ghost, a wolf, Count Dracula, and a mummy…
We’re skedaddling past a skeleton,
a skittle-skattling skeleton,
a skinny, grinning skeleton, shake-rattling its bones.We’re galloping past a ghastly ghost,
a mostly misty, ghostly ghost,
a flying, floating, twisty ghost,
swishing through the dark.
…until they reach their destination and scream — safe and sound — “Trick or Treat!”
If I wasn’t already a serious fan of R.W. Alley’s work — his expressive pen, colored pencil and watercolor illustrations are just so dang cute — this book would convince me he’s something special. But it’s Krieb’s merry text — into which he packs so many juicy words in a rhythm that’s impossible to read aloud without true enthusiasm — that makes this one of my favorite ones to recommend for toddlers and preschoolers this time of year. (Though, my kids are 10 and 7yo, and I still read it to them…)
Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandin
When Millie Fleur La Fae moves to the new town of Garden Glen, there’s one major problem: absolutely everything in the same.
Determined to make her new home (the only tumbledown house on a scruffy hill at the edge of town) feel more like her own, she plants some seeds she brought from her old place. It’s different — a weird little garden full of odd, unruly, “unacceptable” plants, including some with teeth — but as her sanctuary begins to grow, so does the curiosity of the people around her.
Inspired by an actual poison garden at a castle in Northumberland, England, Mandin’s delightfully peculiar story (along with her charming digital illustrations) is, above all, about being true to yourself and not changing who you are for other people. Original ideas are weird, and that’s the best part about them — this book illustrates that (see what I did there?) beautifully.
Grandma Chickenlegs by Geraldine McCaughrean, illustrated by Moira Kemp (1999)
Baba Yaga is a supernatural bad being (or badass, depending on your perspective) who regularly appears in the folktales of Slavic cultures as an old woman that flies around in a mortar and pestle hunting little children, and lives in a little hut on chicken legs. Often, but not always, she has a super-scary nose, teeth made of iron, and a fence around her house made entirely of bones.
In every sense, Grandma Chickenlegs is a Baba Yaga story. Though it shares some striking similarities with Cinderella — a girl’s mother dies, her father remarries, her stepmother is a real piece of work and so she is made to become a servant in her own household — the likeness ends the moment the little girl, named Tatia here, is sent by her stepmother to borrow a needle from Grandma Chickenlegs, and upon arrival, the reader sees the enormous taloned feet of granny’s chicken-legged house.
There is a traditional sequence of events that occurs here, none of which I will spoil for you — it’s too weird to believe, as the best folktales are — only to say this title is a page-turning, edge-of-your-seat read that, coupled with Kemp’s intense and eye-catching colored pencil illustrations, is immensely enjoyable for children of a variety of ages.
The Dark Way: Stories from the Spirit World by Virginia Hamilton, illustrated by Lambert Davis (1990)
In Hamilton’s masterfully written collection of 25 eerie stories rooted in a wide, diverse variety of folklore and mythology, she explores what she calls “the Dark Way” — a place beyond us where unearthly spirits wait.
The tales here are compelling, often blurring the line between the real and the unreal, exploring the mysteries of the afterlife, the supernatural and the unknown. Probably best for early elementary to middle-grade readers (only because the scarier stories are a little too dark for younger readers/listeners), this one invites readers to ponder the shadowy realms of the spirit world and transport themselves there — if they dare.
Monster Tree by Sarah Allen (2024)
In this perfectly creepy new middle-grade novel by the talented Allen, the reader meets Linus, a young artist deep in grief and change. Creatively blocked since his father died — and fresh off a move with his mom to a new part of town — Linus plans simply to survive the summer before 7th grade.
Things, of course, not are simple. (Are they ever?)
The tree in the neighbor’s yard “looks like it was cultivated by demons,” to start. It…moves in the night. And when strange events begin happening in the neighborhood — claw marks, missing pets, sightings of a red-eyed creature, things you never really want to pop into your life — Linus begins to suspect that neither the tree nor its owner are innocent.
If you’re looking for a supernatural story to get you in the proper mood for spooky season, look no further than this excellently crafted story that’s not just about a demonic tree or a brave boy but also about the ways in which we survive the things we’re not sure are survivable, and the things outside us that help us along the way.
Don’t Read This Book Before Bed: Thrills, Chills, and Hauntingly True Stories by Anna Claybourne (2017)
It’s unlikely that every last bit of the information in this compendium of “tales, terrors, thrills, and chills of hauntingly fun stories from around the globe” is true — but who cares? As ever, National Geographic Kids uses every square inch of every page to pack this book full of scientific and historical facts alongside photos, images, and other creepy curiosities that will have young readers wondering things like: What’s star jelly? What if there’s another “me” out there? (Welcome to the multiverse!) Is the Mongolian deathworm real?
If you have a middle-grade nonfiction lover, a reader thirsty for facts and information, or a kiddo into the weird, macabre, and/or unexplained — or if that describes you, too — don’t miss this one.
I also have a Bookshop.org list, Books for Halloween, if you’d prefer to visually browse and/or support this newsletter in another way — I get a tiny commission if you use this link to make a purchase. (Thank you!)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃
Sarah
itty bitty betty blob!?!! sounds so cute!
Sarah, I'm late digging into your list, but I keep Halloween in my heart year-round, so it was right on time for me. I loved re-visiting Millie Fleur's Poison Garden. Our-difference-is-the-very-best-part-of-us theme never gets old. And this line is so good: "Some of the plants have teeth."