Monthly
Special
Ghost Stories
Picture Books | Intermediate
Fiction | Young Adult Fiction
The books recommended below were published within the
last two years. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual
child is the real criterion.
Picture Books
Suggested grade level listed with each entry
Three Little Ghosties
written by Pippa Goodhart, illustrated by AnnaLaura Cantone (Bloomsbury)
Three ghosts brag about the tricks they’ve played, scaring
witches and even an ogre, but get their own fright when they target
boys and girls. Grade level: Preschool–3. 32 pages.
Ghosts in the House!
written and illustrated by Kazuno Kohara (Roaring Brook)
A little girl moves into a haunted house, hops on her broom (luckily,
she’s also a witch), and starts ghost wrangling in this upbeat,
not-scary-at-all tale of resourcefulness. Grade level: Preschool.
32 pages.
Skelly the Skeleton Girl
written and illustrated by Jimmy Pickering (Simon)
Skelly finds a bone in her house and goes in search of the owner,
asking her pet bat, her man-eating plants, and the ghosts who come
for tea. 32 pages.
 
Intermediate Fiction
Suggested grade level for each entry (unless otherwise indicated):
4–6.
Seer of Shadows by Avi (HarperCollins)
In post–Civil War New York, fourteen-year-old Horace becomes
apprenticed to a photographer engaged in spiritual fleecing and
accidentally unleashes a vengeful ghost. 202 pages.
Passion and Poison: Tales of Shape-Shifters,
Ghosts and Spirited Women written by Janice M. Del Negro, illustrated
by Vince Natale (Marshall Cavendish)
Spooky twists and turns, dramatic timing, a deceptively informal
tone, and the challenge to figure out “what really happened”
draw readers into these seven heavily folkloric tales. Grade level:
4–8. 64 pages.
The Garden of Eve by K. L. Going
(Harcourt)
When Evie and her father move to an orchard beside a cemetery in
rural New York State, Evie quickly makes two friends: elderly Maggie
and a mysterious boy who claims to be a ghost. 232 pages.
All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary
Downing Hahn (Clarion)
While staying at their grandmother’s reputedly haunted inn,
mischief-makers Travis and Corey uncover the inn’s dark history
of abused children and a malevolent guardian who still torments
them. Grade level: 4–8. 182 pages.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow written
by Washington Irving, illustrated by Gris Grimly (Atheneum)
The tale of the headless horseman, slightly condensed into a graphic
novel format but with language and ambiguities intact, is accompanied
by Halloween-hued illustrations whose comically caricaturized figures
mute the scare factor for young readers. 40 pages.
From Another World
written by Ana Maria Machado, illustrated by Lucia Brandao (Groundwood)
In modern-day Brazil, a sad and restless ghost child from the nineteenth
century appears before Mariano and his friends and entrusts them
with the appalling story of her life as a slave and her shocking
death. 136 pages.
Johnny and the Dead
by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
When Johnny brings a radio to the cemetery to help the dead pass
the time, they are roused to fight corporate expansion in order
to prevent the imminent relocation of the cemetery. Grade level:
4–8. 213 pages.
The Bone Collector’s Son
by Paul Yee (Marshall Cavendish)
Fourteen-year-old Bing assists his father in exhuming skeletons
from the Chinese cemetery for shipment back to China in this unusual
ghost story that blends East with West against the backdrop of anti-Asian
protests in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Vancouver. Grade level:
4–8. 139 pages.
Young Adult Fiction
Suggested grade level for each entry: 7 and up. The
Graveyard Book written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated
by Dave McKean (HarperCollins)
After his family is killed by a sinister man named Jack, young Bod
is raised in a graveyard, with ghosts as his surrogate parents,
and taught otherwordly secrets. 309 pages.
The Ghosts of Kerfol
by Deborah Noyes (Candlewick)
This collection of five interconnected short ghost stories begins
with Edith Wharton's "Kerfol" told from the servant's
perspective and continues the story in the Kerfol ghosts’
impact on four future generations of residents. 165 pages.
The Unresolved
by T. K. Welsh (Dutton)
A victim of New York’s General Slocum steamboat disaster
in 1904 speaks to the reader from beyond death, tracking the progress
of the investigation and the vilification of the boy she fancied.
151 pages.
A Certain Slant of Light
by Laura Whitcomb (Graphia/Houghton)
A disembodied spirit tries to escape her hell of icy drowning by
“cleaving” to human hosts, only to meet and fall in
love with another marooned spirit after 150 years of this limbo.
282 pages.
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