I'm super excited by all the great middle grade and young adult horror and spooky books I read for this month!
As a continuation of Hispanic / Latinx Heritage Month, I read The Last Cuentista, then embarked on spooky / scary reading for the month!
Proximity to the Dead
For years now, I've maintained there's something about October and putting young main characters super-close to dead bodies that middle grade readers absolutely eat up!
In Death and Douglas, by JW Ocker, the main character lives above a mortuary and grows up thinking death is natural -- until a serial killer proves that wrong.
The Grave Thief, by Dee Hahn, features a young boy who's also a grave digger (named "Spade" by his father) and thief and ends up embroiled in magical intrigue way over his head.
Bones Unearthed is non-fiction about exactly that, unearthing bodies, and the third in the series by Kerri Logan Hollihan. I reviewed the first two this time last year, and there were COVID and shipping reasons for waiting so long to review this one.
Ghost Stories
Elizabeth Webster and the Court of Uncommon Pleas features an otherworldly "court" needed to evict a ghost from a haunted house and rescue her father from a demon's cage.
Just South of Home features a community's history of racism and confronting the ghosts of past victims who are still looking for justice and healing.
What Lives in the Woods is – yes – a haunted house / ghost story, not a "monsters-in-the-woods" story.
Spooky Sequels
Dark Waters and Empty Smiles are the latest in the excellent Small Spaces series by Katherine Arden featuring the diabolical villain, The Smiling Man.
Shadowghast is a third book in the Legends of Eerie-on-sea series, set on the town's equivalent of Halloween. This time Herbert Lemon must figure out who's controlling a horrible beast and why it doesn't want his shadow.
Attack of the Killer Komodos goes out on a genetic "limb" for the sequel to Mutant Mushroom Takeover and we loved it!
Young Adult Dr. Jeckyl / Mr. Hyde Retelling
Ash House features middle grade aged characters (12 or so) in a truly creepy setting, but the horror aspects of this tale are so horrific and based in real life (it's a Dr. Jeckyl / Mr. Hyde retelling with an evil doctor) that I'd say it's closer to lower YA than MG.
Other Reads
I also read the dark mystery, The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane, and end the month with the first book in the Frightville chapter book series: Don't Let the Doll In.
For Teachers: Short Creepy School Stories
Out to Get You is a compilation of scary, eerie or twisted middle-school setting inspired short stories, from 8 to 18 pages long. Perfect for a quick, creepy, in-class read!
And these were last year's October reads...
