The Halloween season is the perfect time to read spooky stories. Nights are getting colder and longer and mentions of ghosts seem to be everywhere. Ghost stories are often associated with campfires, marshmallows, and bumps in the night. But sometimes, a ghost story is best read alone. This book list includes twelve riveting ghost stories, all written for readers ages 13-18. Varying in length, style, and level of fright, teen readers who enjoy ghost stories are sure to find a new favorite on this list. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
Seventeen-year-old Denise Farber, her mom, and her stepfather are moving back to New Orleans, into the Argonne house, which is over 100 years old and showing its age, but her mother plans to turn into a bed-and-breakfast. But, old houses have histories, sometimes ghosts, and a mysterious old comic book that Denise finds in the attic may hold the answer to a crime and the terrifying things that keep happening in what she thinks of as the “Agony” house.
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father’s work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. But, everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.
Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school. However, falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.
Sixteen-year-old Cordelia and her family move into the house they just inherited in Pennsylvania, a former insane asylum the locals call Hysteria Hall. Unfortunately, the house does not want defiant girls like Delia, so it kills her. As she wanders the house, meeting the other ghosts and learning the dark secrets of the Hall, she realizes that she has to find a way to save her sister, parents, and perhaps herself.
Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due. But when she meets Tark, she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.
I am Alfonso Jones
By: Tony Medina
Illustrated by: Stacey Robinson and John Jennings
The ghost of fifteen-year-old Alfonso Jones travels in a New York subway car full of the living and the dead, watching his family and friends fight for justice after he is killed by an off-duty police officer while buying a suit in a Midtown department store.
In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.
There are three rules in the neighborhood: Don’t cry; Don’t snitch; Get revenge. Will takes his dead brother Shawn’s gun and gets in the elevator on the 7th floor. As the elevator stops on each floor, someone connected to Shawn gets on. Someone already dead. Dead by teenage gun violence. And each has something to share with Will.
Teens Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna follow all the rules, but when their summoning circle is broken, the vengeful spirit of Bloody Mary slips through. As the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are changed forever.
As fifteen-year-old Pemba adjusts to leaving her Brooklyn, New York, home for small-town Connecticut, a Black history researcher helps her understand the paranormal experiences drawing her into the life of a mulatto girl who was once a slave in her house.
Teenage Bina runs away to New York City’s Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history and dark secrets, where she is drawn to her mysterious downstairs neighbor Monet.
Seventeen-year-old Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat, able to see ghosts in color and capture them on film. But when a routine hunt goes awry, Micheline is infected with a curse known as a soulchain, and if she is unable to exorcise the entity in seven days, she will be destroyed, body and soul.
Debut author Kat Shepherd writes fast-paced series books with the goal of making reading a joyful experience for every kid. A former classroom teacher, Kat has also worked as a deli waitress, a Hollywood script reader, and a dog trainer for film and TV. She has graciously taken time out of her busy writing schedule to talk with us about herself and her recent publication The Shadow Hand.
Your debut novel, The Shadow Hand, Book 1 in the Babysitting Nightmares Series, hit bookshelves this past summer and it’s getting rave reviews. Can you tell us a little about the book and why you chose to write a spooky adventure series?
I write the kinds of books I loved to read growing up and still love to read now. I loved scary books, mysteries, adventures, and comedies, and it was important to me to be able to offer those same kinds of books for all kinds of readers.
BABYSITTING NIGHTMARES is a middle grade series about four best friends who must confront a new supernatural threat with each new babysitting job. THE SHADOW HAND is the first book, and it follows the story of Rebecca Chin, a really practical, together kid who considers herself a pretty expert babysitter. She’s sitting for her favorite baby, Kyle, when there’s a freak storm and the power goes out. The baby seems completely fine, but the locked window in his bedroom is suddenly open, and there’s moss on the windowsill… in the shape of a hand. And that’s just chapter one.
The creep factor escalates from there into a fun, fast-paced read full of scares and suspense, but the girls’ friendship is the true heart of the story. Think Goosebumps meets The Baby-Sitters Club. Book 2, The Phantom Hour, hits shelves on January 29, 2019.
What is your secret to making your stories appealing, even to the most reluctant readers?
I think that reading and literacy is a fundamental right for all people, and to deny anyone that right is morally wrong. I believe really strongly in listening to and respecting kid readers, and everything I write comes directly from that core mission. Before I started writing fiction, I was a classroom teacher and educational consultant. I spent a lot of time working with “reluctant” readers. Educators are now starting to call these kids undiscovered readers, because they haven’t yet discovered those books that excite them and keep them turning the pages. In working with these undiscovered readers, I found that the books they did gravitate towards tended to be series books, scary books, and books with short chapters and cliffhanger endings. So as a writer, it is my goal to meet them where they are and try to create something that gives them what they have asked for. I put a lot of care into finding the right balance in creating fun reads that still give readers some really meaty ideas to think about.
I think it can be very tempting for adults to want to limit what kids read or to expect kids to read only books that nourish them in very specific ways. However, just as eating a wide variety of foods helps keep us happy and healthy, so does reading a wide variety of books, because different kinds of books nourish us in different ways. I usually have a good four or five books I’m reading at any given time. Some are serious books, and some are much lighter. If I were only allowed to read the serious books with awards on their covers, I would spend far less time reading than I do now. I might even stop reading altogether. Because I would think to myself, “If being a reader means I’m only supposed to spend time with these kinds of books, then I just must not be a reader.” If you turn reading into work, then you’ve already lost. Because how many people want to spend their free time going to work?
What book can readers expect to see from you next?
Book 2 of Babysitting Nightmares, The Phantom Hour, will be in stores on January 29, 2019. In this installment, Clio Carter-Peterson has taken a job babysitting for the Lee family, who has recently moved into the long-abandoned Plunkett Mansion. The family is lovely, and history-loving Clio is fascinated by the beautiful old building, but soon doors start closing behind her, objects move on their own, and messages appear from beyond the grave. With help from her friends, Clio soon discovers that the mansion’s dark past might be the reason behind these frightening events, and the girls must work together to put old spirits to rest before it’s too late. This book is more of a classic spooky read than Book 1, and I think scary story fans will love the thrills and chills I’ve thrown in. I even scared myself a few times while I was writing it!
My second book series, The Gemini Mysteries (Bonnier/Yellow Jacket), debuts with The North Star on March 5, 2019. It’s an interactive mystery series set in the Twin Cities, where I live. Twins Zach and Evie Mamuya and their best friend, Vishal Desai, tag along with the twins’ crime reporter mom when she gets a call that a priceless diamond necklace has been stolen just before a high-profile auction. That’s when they meet Sophia Boyd, a new girl at school who is certain she knows the identity of the thief. The four young teens must follow the clues, which are hidden in the illustrations at the end of each chapter, to catch the culprit and find the necklace or risk it being lost forever. It’s an action-packed story that’s full of twists and turns, and I can’t wait to share it with readers everywhere.
Your website states you are a writer and an educator? Are you currently doing both? If so, what grade/subject do you teach?
I had been working as an educator right up until we moved to Minnesota, but I switched to writing full-time in September, 2017. I was a fourth and fifth grade classroom teacher from 2000 to 2009, and after that I worked as a homeschool teacher, tutor, and educational consultant for third through eight graders. The middle grades are one-hundred percent where my heart lies; those are my people. Fifth grade is my absolute favorite, and I think it is just the perfect age for teachers.
I honestly loved every subject I taught. I’m a naturally curious person, and I loved sharing that excitement and curiosity with my students. My classroom library was epic: I knew how to work those Scholastic points, so I had just about every book a kid could want, and if I didn’t, I would use my own money to buy it for the classroom. I loved helping kids grow into joyful readers, and I was also passionate about teaching them how to research and craft a written argument; I think that is vitally important. But I think my very favorite subject to teach was math. I didn’t learn to love math—and I mean deeply, deeply love the elegance and brilliance of math—until I started teaching it. I want every student to learn to love math as passionately as I do.
While living in Southern California, you and your husband hosted weekend writer retreats. How did the idea come about?
My husband and I are both connectors; we love creating community, and we have the kinds of minds that enjoy pulling together disparate ideas and figuring out how to make them work. On an adventure one day we discovered this former lodge and church camp that was about a four-mile-hike from civilization, and the new owners were eager to bring new folks in to enjoy this magical spot. We had always wanted to put together a creative writing retreat, and it was a fun challenge to adapt what we wanted to do with the limitations of a remote location: no laptops, no wifi, and an honest-to-goodness mule train if you wanted to bring in anything heavier than you could carry in your backpack. Living in Los Angeles can be exhausting; it’s a huge city with constant demands on your time and attention. We had a lot of friends who wanted to dedicate more time and attention to creating, but they were so busy with the daily grind that they weren’t able to focus on it in the way that they wanted to. Getting out in the woods and away from everything was the perfect antidote to that, and it really helped folks refill the creative well.
We’re hoping to host retreats again up in our new home state of Minnesota, so once we get settled up here we’ll be looking for a spot! I just found out our next-door-neighbor owns a little camp of cabins up north somewhere, so that might be the perfect place to start. The key will just be getting our California friends up here to make it happen!
Besides books and education, what other passions do you have, and will we see those passions featured in future publications?
I love animals, and the way that plays out in my own life is through the volunteer work I do with zoos and on behalf of homeless pets. I first started volunteering in zoos when I was in college, and I’ve gotten to work with a lot of interesting animals. Of those I got to work with directly, my favorites were tigers and small primates, although I did form a pretty strong bond with an Andean condor. I love zoos, and volunteering with them has allowed me to see how much thought and care goes into each animal’s welfare.
My passion for zoos and their role in animal care and conservation comes out a lot in my Gemini Mysteries series. In Book 1, The North Star, Sophia is working to raise money for a new gibbon exhibit. Gibbons are often known as ‘the singing apes’ for their incredible calls, and I have been lucky enough to get to sing with gibbons myself. It is one of my favorite memories, and I was so excited to be able to give readers a chance to fall in love with these special primates, just as I have, and just as Sophia does. This series also lets me raise awareness about palm oil plantations, which are responsible for the rapidly declining populations of a whole host of animals, including gibbons and their even more critically endangered cousins, orangutans. I had never heard of palm oil until one of my students told me about it a few years ago, and I love being able to use what I learned from her to help educate other people. For instance, there’s an amazing app from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo that lets you do a barcode scan of any product at a store and find out where it stands on sustainable palm oil use. It has made a significant change to my shopping habits, so any companies who still haven’t joined the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) please take note. (You better step it up, @wholefoods and @traderjoes!)
Dog rescue is a huge part of my life, because I believe it is our duty to care for our pets the same way we care for other loved ones in our lives. My husband and I always have a foster dog in our house in addition to our own two dogs, and I’ve also done other types of volunteer work with rescues and shelter intervention programs. I particularly love shelter intervention programs, which are gaining ground in major cities. Many pets end up in shelters not because they are unwanted, but because their owners are unable to keep them for financial or other reasons. Shelter intervention programs help keep pets home with the families that love them by intervening before pets are turned in. They offer low-cost vet care, free obedience training, legal help with landlord issues, and even free pet food. I love that they help both people and animals by addressing the root of the problem and working to fix it. I do have a character in the Gemini books that rescues dogs, and it’s fun to share a little bit of my passion through her.
Because the stories I write tend to be spooky or action-packed with lots of peril, I rarely include dogs in my books. There’s a reason for this! As a reader I get SO WORRIED if there is a pet in a scary story, and I would be totally preoccupied that something bad was going to happen to it. I don’t want my readers to have the same worries, so pets in my stories are rare for that reason. However, I have found a way to slip my own dogs into a few of my stories, and I promise that I’ll never let anything bad happen to a dog in my book!
If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be?
Believe it or not, the title always comes last for me. I usually don’t come up with one until I’ve finished writing the book and had the chance to look at it as a whole. So, I hope I’ve still got a ways to go until I get to the point where my life is ready for a title. Ask me again in fifty years!
Babysitting Nightmares Book 2: The Phantom Hour (Macmillan/Imprint) hits shelves 1/29/19! Gemini Mysteries Book 1: The North Star (Bonnier/Yellow Jacket) debuts 3/5/19!
Want to keep up with Kat? Website:http://www.katshepherd.com Twitter: @bookatshepherd Instagram: @authorshep
Haunted houses, werewolves, monsters, sinister beings. What is lurking in the closet? Where are the voices coming from?
Why is it that we love spooky novels so much? They keep us up all night, sometimes in terror yet sometimes because we can’t stop reading them. And, it’s not just adults who love scary novels. Some of the most reluctant readers gravitate towards them. A good scary novel can not only be entertaining, but it can also teach plot/sequence of events and predicting.
The 18 novels we have included in our list have brave protagonists in challenging and scary situations. While some may not be for the faint of heart, each represents hours of suspense for middle grade readers.
Practically-perfect twelve-year-old Victoria Wright must lie, sneak, and break the rules when her investigation of the disappearance of her best–and only–friend, Lawrence, reveals dark secrets about her town and the orphanage run by the reclusive Mrs. Cavendish.
Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.
After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different, ancient, and wild. And it wants something terrible and dangerous from Conor. It wants the truth.
When a mysterious wasp queen invades his dreams, offering to “fix” Steve’s new baby brother, Steve thinks his prayers have been answered. But, he may be dangerously wrong.
When twelve-year-old Joy’s pet frog gets away, she, her brother, and their elusive friend Poppy sneak onto the grounds of the town’s asylum and discover mysteries that only reinforce Joy’s beliefs that there are supernatural forces at work in the town of Spooking.
Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house.
In 1899, a twelve-year-old rat catcher on North Carolina’s Biltmore estate teams up with the estate owner’s young nephew to battle a great evil and, in the process, unlocks the puzzle of her past.
When eleven-year-old Olive and her distracted parents move into an old Victorian mansion, Olive finds herself ensnared in a dark plan involving some mysterious paintings, a trapped and angry nine-year-old boy, and three talking cats.
Moving into an inherited mansion in Maine with their mother and stroke-afflicted father, three siblings uncover a mystery involving hidden passageways, family rivalries, and healing waters.
Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of her house, although others in her family disagree, and when the wolves come out, the adventure begins.
When eleven-year-old Juniper begins to suspect something is wrong with her mother and father, she and her friend Giles discover they have been selling their souls, pieces at a time, to a silver-tongued creature in a terrifying fairy-tale underworld.
Phears, an evil ghost, wants eleven-year-old Max to help him capture the ghosts of two children whose parents once trapped him, and he sends a Berserker Ghoul to possess Max and convince him to obey.
In the nineteenth century, ten-year-old Florence Crutchfield leaves a London orphanage to live with her great-uncle, great-aunt, and sickly cousin James, but she soon realizes the home has another resident, who means to do her and James harm.
In this twist on “Hansel and Gretel,” two middle schoolers find themselves in a new charter school filled with a mysterious abundance of food at mealtimes and sinister teachers up to no good.
During a long car trip, best friends Quinn and Kara explore the strange and creepy goings-on at a remote Nevada inn when Kara’s family stops for the night.
