Everyone loves a good scare from time to time – even kids! Sometimes, you just feel like reading a book in bed late at night, clutching the covers up to your chin out of fear. Here are bone-chilling middle-grade horror novels that are sure to keep you up at night!
Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
Readers will love protagonist and fellow book lover Ollie, who escapes into stories to avoid her own tragic past. When she sees a weird lady threatening to throw a book into the water below, she does what any good reader would do – steals the books and runs away as fast as her little legs can carry her.
She soon dives into the story, learning all about Beth. The young girl is caught in a love triangle between two brothers and finds herself in some strange deal with “the smiling man.” He promises to grant her a wish, but not without a price. The chilling tale immediately enthralls Ollie.
The following day, she embarks on a class field trip to the haunted farm of Smoke Hollow. There, while exploring their old cemetery, she stumbles across tombstones matching the exact characters in the story she’s been reading. When their school bus breaks down, and Ollie and her class find themselves stuck at the farm, they receive an ominous warning from the driver: “Best get moving. At nightfall, they’ll come for the rest of you.” Ollie and two of her peers must brave the forest with only one piece of guiding advice to aid them: keep to small spaces.
The Clackity by Lora Senf
Blight Harbor is the seventh-most haunted town in America. It is also the place Evie Von Rathe calls home, where she lives with her aunt and paranormal guru Desdemona. The young girl mostly has free reign, but under no circumstances must she ever enter the deserted slaughterhouse at the town’s edge. But when her aunt enters the mysterious building never to be seen again, Evie ignores her aunt’s warnings.
While searching for her aunt inside, Evie makes the acquaintance of an otherworldly shadow creature who inhabits every nook and cranny of the building – The Clackity. She enters into a dangerous deal with this shadow monster. Evie will get her aunt back if she delivers the ghost of the former town serial killer, John Jeffrey Pope. Soon, Evie finds herself thrust into the otherworld. There, she is faced with all sorts of strange paranormal beings, including a dead man chasing Evie in the hopes of adding her to his twisted collection of lost souls.
Goosebumps Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine
R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books are one the most celebrated middle-grade horror series of all time. One particular fan favorite, and the first in the series, is Welcome to Dead House. Siblings Amanda and Josh have just moved with their family to the town of Dark Falls after a dead relative left them a house there. They get some seriously spooky and bad vibes from the town, let alone their own home. But their parents just tell them to brush it off and try making a few new friends. But it turns out these friends have a much more sinister agenda and want to be friends with the siblings… forever.
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Another children’s horror staple, Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is chock full of bloodcurdling tales. These folkloric inspired short stories bring on all the spooky staples. There are vengeful ghosts, haunted houses, and flesh mangled skeletons.
Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon
You’ve probably played the beloved game hide and seek before – but not like this. Justin’s friend Zee has recently returned home after going missing for a year. Nobody knows exactly what happened to him that year, and he doesn’t seem quite the same. At a party welcoming him back home, Justin, Zee, and their friends all play a game of Hide and Seek that spirals quickly into chaos. Everyone playing has been trapped in a world full of nightmares, the same place Zee had gone missing for a year. Together, they need to find a way out and, most importantly, stay hidden from the Seeker.
Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Curie
Claire loves facts, figures, and science. She doesn’t buy into the paranormal mumbo jumbo that her dad sells as part of their family business guiding ghost-themed tours of Chicago. So when she’s forced to help out on the tour bus, she isn’t exactly thrilled. Just when she finally finishes it all, she notices a sad and strange-looking boy behind the bus. His dark eyes stay with her, but when she goes back to check on him at the end of the tour, he’s nowhere to be found. Claire soon writes off the incident, but when she begins hearing strange noises and seeing the number 396 everywhere she looks, she can’t ignore the boy from the bus anymore, especially because he has started following her.
Whether you’re looking to travel to paranormal alternate dimensions, move into a haunted house, or get entangled with an eerie ghost, these Middle Grade Horror picks all deliver on spooks and scares!
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