Best Horror Books for Children

Rank 1

The Screaming Staircase

by Stroud, Jonathan

*Follows three young operatives of a Psychic Detection Agency as they battle an epidemic of ghosts in London.* This book is part of a brilliant series for children (and parents) who love to be creeped out. It’s set in Lo...

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Rank 2

A Tale Dark and Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

Follows Hansel and Gretel as they walk out of their own story and into eight more tales, encountering such wicked creatures as witches, along with kindly strangers and other helpful folk. Based in part on the Grimms' fai...

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Rank 3

The Ghost’s Grave

by Peg Kehret

What Josh thought would be the dullest summer of his life, spent with his eccentric aunt, turns chilling when he meets the ghost of a coal miner killed in a mine explosion. Willie has been waiting years for some kind sou...

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Rank 4

The Dead Boys

by Royce Buckingham

In the desert town of Richland, Washington, there stands a giant sycamore tree. Horribly mutated by nuclear waste, it feeds on the life energy of boys that it snags with its living roots. And when Teddy Matthews moves to...

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Rank 5

The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray

by Wooding, Chris

As Thaniel, a wych-hunter, and Cathaline, his friend and mentor, try to rid the alleys of London's Old Quarter of the terrible creatures that infest them, their lives become entwined with that of a woman who may be eithe...

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Rank 6

The Ghost in the Noonday Sun

by Sid Fleischman

Twelve-year-old Oliver tries to escape from pirates who take him to an island to find the ghost and treasure of Gentleman Jack.

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Rank 7

The Ghost by the Sea

by Eileen Dunlop

While a guest at Culaloe, Robin discovers that the spirit of Milly, a young girl who tragically drowned prior to World War I, is haunting the house, and she and her cousin, John, begin a search for answers to the mysteri...

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Rank 8

Nightmare Academy: Monster Hunters

by Dean Lorey

It's the monster hunters' last chance to stop an all-out monster war! We're under attack! The last of the mega-monsters known as the Named are fighting their way into our world, and only a mysterious being known as the G...

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Rank 9

Tales from Lovecraft Middle School: Professor Gargoyle

by Charles Gilman

The publisher of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies brings you a new series for middle-grade readers: TALES FROM LOVECRAFT MIDDLE SCHOOL offers creepy stories with cool lentic...

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Rank 10

Wait Till Helen Comes

by Mary Downing Hahn

Molly and Michael dislike their spooky new stepsister Heather but realize that they must try to save her when she seems ready to follow a ghost child to her doom.

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Rank 11

Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow

by Katy Towell

In Widowsbury, an isolated village where people believe "known is good, new is bad," three outcasts from the girls' school join forces with a home-schooled boy to uncover and combat the evil that is making people disappe...

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Rank 12

The Stone Child

by Dan Poblocki

What if the monsters from your favorite horror books were real?Eddie Fennicks has always been a loner, content to lose himself in a mystery novel by his favorite author, Nathaniel Olmstead. That's why moving to the small...

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Rank 13

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

by Alvin Schwartz

Stories of ghosts and witches, "jump" stories, scary songs, and modern-day scary stories.

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Rank 14

The Witches

by Dahl, Roald

A young boy and his Norwegian grandmother, who is an expert on witches, together foil a witches' plot to destroy the world's children by turning them into mice.

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Rank 15

Coraline

by Gaiman, Neil

This haunting children's novel follows a young, curious girl named Coraline, who discovers a hidden world inside a locked cupboard in her home. Inside this world, everything is better. Her father isn't glued to his com...

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Rank 16

Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror

by Chris Priestley

Uncle Montague lives alone in a big house and his regular visits from his nephew give him the opportunity to relive some of the most frightening stories he knows. But as the stories unfold, a newer and more surprising na...

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Rank 17

Kate Culhane: A Ghost Story

by Michael Hague

After disturbing a dead man in his grave an Irish girl nearly pays with her life, but thanks to her cleverness and bravery she finds love and riches instead.

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Rank 18

The Ink Drinker

by Eric Sanvoisin

A boy who hates books discovers an ink-drinking vampire in his father's bookshop and follows him to his underground vault.

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Rank 19

I Need My Monster

by Amanda Noll

Ethan is afraid of the dark until a monster under his bed turns out to be afraid of it too. A funny, gently spooky picture book about night-time fears.

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Rank 20

In A Dark, Dark Room

by Alvin Schwartz

A classic collection of easy-to-read spooky tales and poems for young readers, with eerie pictures to match, in the I Can Read series.

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Rank 21

The Dangerous Alphabet

by Gaiman, Neil

As two children and their pet gazelle sneak out of the house in search of treasure, they come across a world beneath the city that is inhabited with monsters and pirates.

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