With fall on our doorsteps and Halloween just around the corner, it’s time to put away the beach reads and pull out the thrilling, chilling, bump-in-the-night scary stories! Here are some classics that you may remember from your own childhood. Why not introduce the next generation of young readers to these suspenseful reads? And if you missed these classics back then, try a read-along with your favorite kid now!

The House With a Clock In Its Wallshouse with a clock in its walls cover, John Bellairs
I was a spooky and bookish kid, so John Bellairs’ thrilling gothic-horror tales were delightfully addictive, but the mystery and adventure elements will appeal to many young readers. Upon becoming suddenly orphaned (a serious hazard in children’s books), Lewis goes to live with his mysterious Uncle Jonathan in a fascinating old house packed with secret rooms, concealed passages, and dusty artifacts. Uncle Jonathan, you see, is a wizard — but so was the previous occupant, who left behind a sinister clock that counts down the minutes until the End of the World. When Lewis accidentally raises the dead on Halloween (hey, it happens to all of us), the clock speeds up! Can they discover and deactivate the doomsday clock before the world ends?

The Wwitch of blackbird pond coveritch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
You may have read this as an assigned book in elementary school, as I did. Despite the witchy-sounding title, it’s really historical fiction about 17th-century Colonial America. Kit Tyler, a 16-year-old girl, arrives rather suddenly at her Puritan aunt and uncle’s Connecticut house. Raised by her grandfather in Barbados, she doesn’t understand the colony’s political conflict with the English crown, and she continually shocks her tight-laced family and village with her unconventional appearance and behavior. When she befriends the widow Hannah Tupper, a Quaker suspected of being a witch, that’s one step too far for Kit’s rigidly unaccepting community. A great way to bring history to vivid life for students who find their social studies textbooks boring.

 

nancy drew and the hidden staircaseNancy Drew and The Hidden Staircase, Carolyn Keene
This classic Nancy Drew mystery, second in the (very long) series, is jam-packed with haunted houses, creepy apparitions, disappearing objects, and eerie music from nowhere. As always, Nancy is the perfectly presentable lady, even when solving her father’s kidnapping. A nostalgic read for adults and a fun, suitable-for-all-ages series for kids. Read our full review.

 

 

 

The Egypt egypt game coverGame, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
It’s a chicken-and-egg question: which came first, my childhood obsession with Egyptology or my fixation on The Egypt Game? (It didn’t hurt that my hometown boasts an awesome Egyptian museum.) In this coming-of-age story, three imaginative girls invent “the Egypt game” in the dusty storage shed of a local antique store. They research ancient Egypt and make their own costumes and artifacts for elaborately re-enacted rituals. Gradually, their group grows as the secret gets out, even including social misfits and bullies. Meanwhile, a series of child abduction-murders has the community in an uproar, and some citizens suspect the grumpy old antique store owner. When the kids’ improvised “oracle” gives them some unsettling answers, the kids wonder if the Egypt game is too dangerous to keep playing — but greater danger is still to come. A just-dark-enough, suspenseful story about the allure of fantasy worlds and the bittersweetness of growing up.

The City of Ember, Jcity of ember covereanne Duprau
A modern classic and now a movie, The City of Ember wasn’t around when I was a kid, but I would have loved it then, too. Ember is (we understand, though its citizens don’t) an underground post-apocalyptic bunker city, built as a last refuge for humanity. It was designed to last for 200 years, but through a combination of corruption and apathy, no one is left who understands Ember’s true purpose or destiny. Worse, supplies are running out and everything is breaking down, but nobody will acknowledge the threat. Lina and Doon have just turned 12 and been assigned their lifetime jobs, and their new access into the grownups’ world convinces them that Ember is in danger and something must change. When Lina discovers a heavily damaged piece of paper called “Instructions for Egress,” she knows she’s found something big. But can she convince the people in charge that they need to risk everything to save the people of Ember? Now a four-volume series, there’s plenty more adventure for readers who love this book.

 

bunnicula coverBunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery, Deborah and James Howe
This “bunny occult” story is more cute than creepy, but younger readers will enjoy the silly hijinks and the animal narrators. Harold the dog and Chester the cat are alarmed when their owners, the Monroes, bring home a bunny that they found on the way home from a Dracula movie and thus named “Bunnicula.” Bunnicula has black-and-white markings that look like a cape, and fangs instead of buck teeth. But when ghost-white vegetables, drained of their juice, start showing up around the house, Chester is convinced it’s time to take drastic action to save their family. A delightful and not-very-scary Halloween book for new readers!

Stephanie Perry
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