It’s spooky season and that means it’s a great time to curl up with a scary book. Of course, as many middle schoolers will tell you, ANY time can be a great time to curl up with a scary book. If you like books that send a shiver down your spine, one of these might be just what you’re looking for.
Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko. Zee Puckett loves ghost stories. She just never expected to be living one. It all starts with a dark and stormy night. When the skies clear, everything is different. People are missing. And Zee is seeing frightening things: large, scary dogs that talk and maybe even … a ghost. When she tells her classmates, only her best friend Elijah believes her. Worse, mean girl Nellie gives Zee a cruel nickname: Ghost Girl. But whatever the storm washed up isn’t going away. To fight for what’s right, Zee will have to embrace what makes her different and what makes her Ghost Girl. And all three of them–Zee, Elijah, and Nellie–will have to work together if they want to give their ghost story a happy ending.
Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon. Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong. One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.
Hush-a-Bye by Jody Lee Mott. When two sisters find an old, muddy doll head in the river, little sister Antonia claims it as her newest treasure. At night Lucy hears her talking to Hush-a-Bye–and does she hear the doll talking back? Soon, Hush-a-Bye seems to be protecting Antonia by making bad things happen to others, and it isn’t long before Lucy asks for its help against her tormentors, too. Slowly Hush-a-Bye’s influence forms a wedge between the sisters, and Antonia’s dependence on it becomes frightening. The doll has a mind of its own, and soon it will have Antonia’s as well. Can Lucy solve the mystery of Hush-a-Bye to stop its evil plans?
Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters: Chilling American Indian Stories by Dan C. Jones. Dark figures in the night. An owl’s cry on the wind. Monsters watching from the edge of the wood. Some of the creatures in these pages might only have a message for you, but some are the stuff of nightmares. These thirty-two short stories — from tales passed down for generations to accounts that could have happened yesterday — are collected from the thriving tradition of ghost stories from American Indian cultures across North America. Prepare for stories of witches and walking dolls, hungry skeletons, La Llorona and Deer Woman, and other supernatural beings ready to chill you to the bone.
Long Lost by Jaqueline West. Once there were two sisters who did everything together. But only one of them disappeared. When Fiona’s family moves to a new town to be closer to her older sister’s figure skating club–and far from Fiona’s close-knit group of friends–nobody seems to notice Fiona’s unhappiness. Alone and out of place, Fiona ventures to the town’s library, a rambling mansion donated by a long-dead heiress. And there she finds a gripping mystery novel about a small town, family secrets, and a tragic disappearance. With a little help from a few odd Lost Lake locals, Fiona uncovers the book’s strange history. Lost Lake is a town of restless spirits, and Fiona will learn that both help and danger come from unexpected places–maybe even from the sister she thinks doesn’t care about her anymore.
The Thirteenth Cat by Mary Downing Hahn. Zoey loves spending the summer with her Aunt Alice, and her aunt’s new house is the perfect place to cozy up with a good book. But she’s unnerved by the overgrown forest next door, which is creepy even in the daytime and full of eerie sounds at night. Worse, there are rumors in town of a dark force in those woods. And Zoey can’t deny that the wild black cats who live there seem to be watching her. When she encounters a mean old woman who claims to be their owner, Zoey realizes there’s more to the cats than meets the eye. But little does she know that the closer she comes to discovering their secret, the more danger she’s in…
Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff. It’s the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug’s best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn’t particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there’s something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug’s eerie old house in rural Vermont… Part ghost story, part contemporary tale of identity and acceptance, this wonderful book blends atmospheric scares with stellar character development. More creepy than truly horrifying, this is a great read for fans of Doll Bones.
