{"id":493008,"date":"2025-10-12T07:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T07:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493008\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T07:18:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T07:18:15","slug":"halloween-books-for-kids-to-sink-their-teeth-into","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493008\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween books for\u00a0kids to sink their teeth into"},"content":{"rendered":"

The run-up to spooky season is well under way, dovetailing\ufeff this year\ufeff with the murder-mystery mania haunting middle-\ufeffyears fiction. Christopher Edge \u2013 oh, the nominative determinism! \u2013 is the award-winning author whose new series, Fear Files, starts with a short, sharp novella, Hide \ufeffand Seek<\/a> (Walker, \u00a37.99), all the better to lure in readers with 2025 attention spans. The artwork by Mathias Ball recalls, perhaps a little too closely for my nerves, the Slender Man bogey figure that began circulating online a decade ago. Edge\u2019s story is \ufeffcreepy: Adam and Sol, their friendship under strain, go exploring and end up in an abandoned, out-of-time village full of uncanny statues and strange, lost children who live in fear of \ufeffthe Itter. A fast-paced, high-stakes game of hide-and-seek ensues.<\/p>\n

Young people have disappeared, too, from the village where young Fran is sent to stay with her aunt and uncle in The Strange Disappearance of Imogen Good<\/a> (Nosy Crow, \u00a37.99). Once they\u2019ve gone, no one remembers them at all. But Fran does recall her annoying, unkind cousin Imogen, and enlists Imogen\u2019s flummoxed, erstwhile best friend to explore what is really lurking behind the garden walls of nearby Stillness Hall (cue: more uncanny statues). Kirsty Applebaum weaves together an enchanted legend from the manor\u2019s distant past with the very contemporary complexities of female\u00a0friendship.<\/p>\n

Another pesky, cursed pile is at the centre of Skulkmoor<\/a> (Puffin, \u00a314.99), Hana Tooke\u2019s tale of a house divided over two long-ago deaths. A wall literally runs down the middle of this grand \ufeffhome, separating warring cousins Iris and Ted, whose families must compete to inherit the estate. All is, of course, not as it seems, as the two cousins try to outwit each other\ufeff, marshalling crows, discovering secret passages and, eventually, unravelling more than one malfeasance from the clan\u2019s past. Iris\u2019s disability is treated matter-of-factly\ufeff as a workaday factor in this complex murder mystery. And Ayesha L Rubio\u2019s great drawings locate the kawaii in period costumes.<\/p>\n

Even more inventive is Emma Carroll\u2019s Dracula & Daughters<\/a> (Faber, \u00a37.99), a gleeful gothic tale in which the sudden death of a music hall actress precipitates an epidemic of vampirism. The plot, though, revolves around three unlikely, flame-haired allies who rapidly discover they are cousins \u2013 with distant Transylvanian relatives, no less \u2013 and that vampirism is treatable; a discredited female doctor has the cure. Moreover, the trio glean that the powerful men of their town stand to benefit financially from people\u2019s fear. Illustrator Marta Bertello renders Mina (named after Bram Stoker\u2019s Mina Harker, the schoolmistress bitten by Dracula), Buffy (yep, that\u2019s a 90s nod) and Bella (hello, Twilight) as vividly as Carroll.<\/p>\n

In the side-realm of fantasy, one of our finest authors, Katherine Rundell, deserves a mention for The\u00a0Poisoned King<\/a> (Bloomsbury, \u00a314.99), book two in her smash hit Impossible Creatures series. A princess\u2019s father is framed for the murder of his own father; now she is at risk and must fight to clear his name. Spoiler alert: we absolutely need more books in which heirs to the throne replace their \ufeffbirthright with representative democracy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s back to the real, very present day\ufeff with Role Model<\/a> (Knights \ufeffof Media, \u00a37.99) by the indefatigably good Elle McNicoll. This is another short, pacy novel, in which neurodivergent Aeriel Sharpe\u2019s workaholic mother becomes prime minister, turning Aeriel\u2019s already complicated life upside down. McNicoll is excellent on the scourge of mean girls and the unintended consequences of going viral. The author\u2019s wider point is that no one \u2013 especially not an autistic girl\u00a0like Aeriel \u2013 should be forced to\u00a0become\u00a0a poster-person for cheery resilience\ufeff.<\/p>\n

Finally, a real horror story. After Halloween comes Armistice Day. The award-winning Jamila Gavin has written My Soul, A Shining Tree<\/a> (Farshore, \u00a3\ufeff8.99), a short book set \ufeffduring the\ufeff first world war. The hopes, fears and privations of three characters are explored: Belgian country girl Lotte\ufeff; glory-hunting German enlistee Ernst, whose courage fails him\ufeff; and Khudadad Khan, an Indian gunner far from home\ufeff, who is based on a historical figure. The three \u2013 all technically enemies, all in their own way victims \u2013 end up sheltering from the carnage under the same tree one night. The title quotes Siegfried Sassoon\u2019s \ufeffpoem Tree and Sky: \u201cLet my soul, a shining tree, \/ Silver branches lift towards thee, \/ Where on a hallowed winter\u2019s night \/ The clear-eyed angels may alight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Order any of these titles from The Observer Shop<\/a> to receive a 10% discount. Delivery charges may apply<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: our recommendations are chosen independently by our journalists. The Observer may earn a small commission if a reader clicks a link and purchases a recommended product. This revenue helps support Observer journalism<\/p>\n

Illustration by Ayesha L Rubio taken from Skulkmoor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The run-up to spooky season is well under way, dovetailing\ufeff this year\ufeff with the murder-mystery mania haunting middle-\ufeffyears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-493008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115359980787761525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}