Frightening Middle Grade for Your Little Horror Fan
I firmly believe that spooky reads are meant to be enjoyed by all! And that includes middle grade readers. If your young reader loves all things Halloween, check out these books that I ranked roughly in scariness from spooky fun to downright chilling so all middle grade horror fans can find something to love. Whether you’re looking for funny ghosts or haunting monsters, this list has it all.
One hour and fourteen minutes later, the chicken is dead (by a steamroller), Rex is cursed (by the Grim Reaper), and wild animals are haunting Rex’s room (hounding him for answers). Even his best friend Darvish is not going to believe this, and that kid believes everything!
Rex’s uninvited ghostly guests are a chatty, messy bunch. And they need Rex to solve their mysterious deadly departures from the Middling Falls Zoo before it happens again. But how?
Rex’s uninvited ghostly guests are a chatty, messy bunch. And they need Rex to solve their mysterious deadly departures from the Middling Falls Zoo before it happens again. But how?
After Sophie’s own mother—the sweetest person she knows—goes rogue, Sophie decides it’s up to her to find a cure. But taking matters into her own hands might be way more than she bargained for if it means braving a secret council of vampires, executing epic heists, and facing the true bad guys head on. With her best friend by her side, Sophie will fight for hope, freedom and a family bonded by a love that’s thicker than blood.
But K2 has a secret gift: He draws maps of worlds that are beyond the wildest imaginations. Worlds with six hundred moons, burning rivers, and dark, twisty jungles alive with plants that hunt by the smell of fear. But what K2 doesn’t know is that the maps he draws are real.
When their baby sister, Annipeck, is kidnapped, the warring stepsiblings will have to use K2’s gift to find a crossing point into one of those worlds and embark on a daring rescue mission.
Thirteen-year-old Molly doesn’t know how she got the short end of the stick—being raised by her neglectful father—while Dustin, the older brother she’s never met, got their mother and the keys to the family estate. But now the siblings are both orphaned, she’s come home for her inheritance, and if Dustin won’t welcome her into the family business, then she’ll happily take her half in cash.
There’s just one problem: the family business is a mortuary for monsters, and Molly’s not sure she’s ready to deal with mysterious doors, talking wolves, a rogue devourer of magic, and a secret cemetery. It’s going to take all of Dustin’s stuffy supernatural knowledge and Molly’s most heroic cosplay (plus a little help from non-human friends) for the siblings to figure it out and save the day…if only they can get along for five minutes.
There’s just one problem: the family business is a mortuary for monsters, and Molly’s not sure she’s ready to deal with mysterious doors, talking wolves, a rogue devourer of magic, and a secret cemetery. It’s going to take all of Dustin’s stuffy supernatural knowledge and Molly’s most heroic cosplay (plus a little help from non-human friends) for the siblings to figure it out and save the day…if only they can get along for five minutes.
When a witch with the power to transform herself into an owl—known in Mexican folklore as La Lechuza—shows up unannounced, Omega, her best friend Clau (who happens to be a ghost), and her cousin Carlitos must conduct a séance under a full moon in order to unravel the mystery of the legend.
Suddenly Omega’s magic begins to change, and the key to understanding her powers is more complicated than she thought. Omega will have to decide what’s more important—trusting the instincts of others or learning to trust in herself.
Aspiring engineer Suzy Hess is invited to the famous Underlook Hotel, domain of the reclusive horror writer Jack Axworth, in the mountains above her hometown of Estes Park, Colorado. Suzy thinks she’s there to tutor Jack’s son, Danny, but instead she finds herself investigating a local curse that threatens the landmark hotel.
With the help of Elijah Jones, an amateur filmmaker who thought he’d been asked to make a film about the so-called King of Horror; Rena Hallorann, the hotel’s caretaker; and Danny, who knows more than he’s letting on, Suzy sets out to solve the mystery at the heart of the Underlook, one that holds the town of Estes Park in its grasp. With only a week to save the hotel—and the town—the friends find themselves racing against time to uncover the shadows of the past.
Together with Tobin’s sister, Jana, Zeus concocts a plan to conjure Tobin’s captors on Halloween night via his paranormal podcast, Odd Occurrences. Listeners are invited to call in and share their supernatural experiences with the audience. From ghostly encounters to haunted dolls, terrifying escape rooms with deadly consequences to alien lake creatures, Zeus hopes that someone’s story will produce a clue that leads him to the mysterious carnival—and ultimately, back to Tobin. But little does Zeus know that Tobin is almost out of time.
And when Max mysteriously vanishes, it’s up to Anna to find him. But can the siblings find a way to survive their own scary story?
But the twins are about to find out that the creepy old book that washed ashore, Tales from the Scaremaster, has a mind of its own—and its mind is set on scares beyond Aidan’s wildest dreams! When the story in its pages about Aidan, Olivia, and a swamp monster starts coming to life, Aidan and Olivia are in a whole mess of trouble. Can they find a way to outrace and outsmart the monster and the Scaremaster…or will they end up as swamp sludge?
