Haunted Houses: Young Adult & Children’s Book List

Now a Netflix Feature Film!

“A heart-pounding page-turner with an outstanding cast of characters, a deliciously creepy setting, and an absolutely merciless body count.” –Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie and The Project

A New York Times bestseller

It’s been almost a year since Makani Young came to live with her grandmother and she’s still adjusting to her new life in rural Nebraska. Then, one by one, students at her high school begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair.

As the body count rises and the terror grows closer, can Makani survive the killer’s twisted plan?

The fourth book of the scream-worthy cult series The Merciless combines Stephen King-level terror with true crime stories like the Amanda Knox case.

The ropes tighten on Berkley Hubbard’s wrists. Blood drips down her fingers and lands with a smack on the cold floor of the church basement. She’s trapped, bound, and petrified by fear. A knife punctures her fragile skin as Berkley’s captors search for the mark of the devil on her body. They say they want to save her–drive the devil away and cleanse her soul–but will she make it out alive?

When Berkley arrived in Italy a week ago, the last thing she expected was that she’d end up fighting for her life. After spending six months at the Institute, confined to a room with the dangerous-yet-alluring Sofia Flores, Berkley was certain that a vacation in Italy with her two best friends would be the perfect getaway. But Berkley is hiding a terrible secret, one that threatens to undo everything. As she’s forced to face her wicked past, she learns that the devil is always watching, and no one is coming to save her.

For fans of the dark family secrets of We Were Liars and the page-turning suspense of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, The Breathless is a haunting tale of deeply buried secrets, forbidden love, and how far some will go to bring back what’s long dead.
 
    No one knows what really happened on the beach where Roxanne Cole’s body was found, but her boyfriend, Cage, took off that night and hasn’t been seen since. Until now. One year—almost to the day—from Ro’s death, when he knocks on the door of Blue Gate Manor and asks where she is.
   Cage has no memory of the past twelve months. According to him, Ro was alive only the day before. Ro’s sister Mae wouldn’t believe him, except that something’s not right. Nothing’s been right in the house since Ro died.
    And then Mae finds the little green book. The one hidden in Ro’s room. It’s filled with secrets—dangerous secrets—about her family, and about Ro. And if what it says is true, then maybe, just maybe, Ro isn’t lost forever.
   And maybe there are secrets so dark, they should never see the light of day.

“[The Breathless] is full of secrets, dark magic, and satisfying twists and turns.”—Booklist

“Bringing together horror, romance, and tragedy in one creepy old house,…[The Breathless] will leave readers heartbroken and haunted.”—The Bulletin

“An absorbing and romantic Gothic mystery that will haunt you long after the final page.”—Kara Thomas, author of The Darkest Corners and Little Monsters
 
“Evocative and mysterious; The Breathless is rich with layered secrets and intertwined stories of love and loss.”—Sarah Tomp, author of My Best Everything.
 
“The Breathless is part magic-tinged mystery, part Southern Gothic, and part romance that chills and thrills you all at once. I couldn’t put it down!”—Tara Hudson, author of the Hereafter trilogy
 
“This sultry Southern tale is drenched in atmosphere! A world of secrets, mysterious family heirlooms, and forbidden love. Get ready to be bewitched by a story where not only does the past live on . . . the dead do, too!”—Adriana Mather, New York Times bestselling author of How to Hang a Witch

Twelve-year-old Clara Dooley has spent her whole life in the Glendoveer mansion, where her mother is a servant to the kind and elderly matron of the house. Clara has never known another home. In fact, she’s confined to the grand estate due to a mysterious heart condition. But it’s a comfortable life, and if it weren’t for the creepy squawking birds in the aviary out back, a completely peaceful one too.

But once old Mrs. Glendoveer passes away, Clara comes to learn many dark secrets about the family. The Glendoveers suffered a horrific tragedy: their children were kidnapped, then drowned. And their father George Glendoveer, a famous magician and illusionist, stood accused until his death. As Clara digs deeper and deeper into the terrifying events, the five birds in the aviary seem to be trying to tell her something. And Clara comes to wonder: what is their true identity? Clara sets out to solve a decades-old murder mystery—and in doing so, unlocks a secret in her own life, too. Kathleen O’Dell deftly weaves magic, secret identities, evil villians, unlikely heroes, and the wonder of friendship into a mystery adventure with all the charm of an old fashioned classic.

For fans of Pretty Little Liars, comes a psychological thriller, from the author of The Cheerleaders, about about how when you’re the new girl in town, you can’t trust anyone, especially other teenage girls.

Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister.

Kacey’s new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls–she’s even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends.

Which is why it’s so odd when her closest friends, Bailey and Jade, start acting distant. And when they don’t invite her to the biggest party of the year, it doesn’t exactly feel like an accident.

But Kacey will never be able to ask, because Bailey never makes it home from that party. Suddenly, Broken Falls doesn’t seem so welcoming after all–especially once everyone starts looking to the new girl for answers.

A supernatural romance about the powers that lie in the shadows of the mind, perfect for fans of Sarah Rees Brennan, Alyxandra Harvey, and Libba Bray.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Spiritualism and séances are all the rage—even in the scholarly town of Cambridge, England. While mediums dupe the grief-stricken, a group of local fringe scientists seeks to bridge the gap to the spirit world by investigating the dark corners of the human mind.

Each running from a shadowed past, Kate, Asher, and Elsie  take refuge within the walls of Summerfield College. But their peace is soon shattered by the discovery of a dead body nearby. Is this the work of a flesh-and-blood villain, or is something otherworldly at play? This unlikely trio must illuminate what the scientists have not, and open a window to secrets taken to the grave—or risk joining the spirit world themselves.

It’s Halloween in the meadow, and the beloved, classic, and New York Times bestselling feathered friends Duck & Goose go trick-or-treating! Now an animated series, available to stream on Apple TV+!
 
Duck is going as a scary ghost. Goose is going as a brave superhero. And Thistle’s costume . . . well, that’s a secret. But what will Duck and Goose do when they hear a very scary swamp monster is looking for them?
 
Praise for the Duck & Goose series:
 
“Duck and Goose have taken their places alongside Frog and Toad and George and Martha as fine examples of friendship, curiosity and problem-solving.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Charming, funny, simple, and surprising. . . . Hills is master of the light comic touch.” —The Boston Globe

Carve out family time for this clever and humorous picture book about a skeleton who is falling to pieces that needs help pulling himself together.
 
Bonaparte is having a tough time. It’s hard for this young skeleton to just hang loose when he can’t keep hold of himself.
 
When he plays catch, his throwing arm literally takes a flyer. Eating lunch can be a real jaw-dropping occasion. How can he start school when he has so many screws loose?

Luckily, Bonaparte hit the bone-anza when it came to his friends. Franky Stein, Blacky Widow, and Mummicula all have some bonehead ideas to help pull him together. But will it be enough to boost his confidence and get him ready for the first day of school?

For fans of We Were Liars, How I Live Now, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane comes a haunting, sexy debut of magical realism. And look for Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s newest book, Spellbook of the Lost and Found.


Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it’s bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it’s just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season—when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17—is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think.

Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There’s a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she’ll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she’ll uncover the dark origins of the accident season—whether she’s ready or not.

Stephen King meets Pretty Little Liars in this pulse-pounding novel from the author of The Merciless
 
Just back from rehab, Casey regrets letting her friends Shana, Julie, and Aya talk her into coming to Survive the Night, an all-night, underground rave in a New York City subway tunnel. Surrounded by frightening drugs and menacing strangers, Casey doesn’t think Survive the Night could get any worse…
 
…until she comes across Julie’s mutilated body in a dank, black subway tunnel, red-eyed rats nibbling at her fingers. Casey thought she was just off with some guy—no one could hear her getting torn apart over the sound of pulsing music. And by the time they get back to the party, everyone is gone.
 
Desperate for help, Casey and her friends find themselves running through the putrid subway tunnels, searching for a way out. But every manhole is sealed shut, and every noise echoes eerily in the dark, reminding them they’re not alone.
 
They’re being hunted.
 
Trapped underground with someone—or something—out to get them, Casey can’t help but listen to Aya’s terrified refrain: “We’re all gonna die down here.”

From Jean Reagan and Lee Wildish, bestselling creators of How to Catch Santa and How to Babysit a Grandpa, comes a silly (and not-too-scary) send-up of Halloween for the little ghost in your life!

This Halloween, the kids are in charge! Playful, tongue-in-cheek advice shows kids how to set the stage for a spooktacular Halloween. There are jack-o’-lanterns to make, games to play, and LOTS of costumes to try on. And if a ghost should happen to be attracted to all the activity? Invite him to join in the fun, of course! Filled with charming role-reversal humor, creative ideas, and lots of holiday spirit, How to Scare a Ghost is sure to delight even the littlest trick-or-treaters.

The #1 New York Times bestseller!

It’s the Salem Witch Trials meets Mean Girls in this New York Times bestselling novel from one of the descendants of Cotton Mather, where the trials of high school start to feel like a modern-day witch hunt for a teen with all the wrong connections to Salem’s past.

Salem, Massachusetts, is the site of the infamous witch trials and the new home of Samantha Mather. Recently transplanted from New York City, Sam and her stepmother are not exactly welcomed with open arms. Sam is the descendant of Cotton Mather, one of the men responsible for those trials—and almost immediately, she becomes the enemy of a group of girls who call themselves the Descendants. And guess who their ancestors were?

If dealing with that weren’t enough, Sam also comes face to face with a real, live (well, technically dead) ghost. A handsome, angry ghost who wants Sam to stop touching his stuff. But soon Sam discovers she is at the center of a centuries-old curse affecting anyone with ties to the trials. Sam must come to terms with the ghost and find a way to work with the Descendants to stop a deadly cycle that has been going on since the first accused witch was hanged. If any town should have learned its lesson, it’s Salem. But history may be about to repeat itself.

“It’s like Mean Girls meets history class in the best possible way.” —Seventeen Magazine

“Mather shines a light on the lessons the Salem Witch Trials can teach us about modern-day bullying—and what we can do about it.” —Bustle

“Strikes a careful balance of creepy, fun, and thoughtful.” —NPR
 
I am utterly addicted to Mather’s electric debut. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, twisting and turning with ghosts, witches, an ancient curse, and—sigh—romance. It’s beautiful. Haunting. The characters are vivid and real.  I. Could. Not. Put. It. Down.”  —Jennifer Niven, bestselling author of All the Bright Places

UH OH! There’s a MONSTER in YOUR book! Shake, wiggle, and tickle the monster out in this interactive bedtime read-aloud that launched the Who’s In Your Book series!

With the irresistible pull of Hervé Tullet’s Press Here and the charm of The Monster at the End of This Book, this inviting and interactive read-aloud will have kids tilting, spinning, and shaking the book to get the adorable little monster out! That’s right! He’s out of the book . . . and in their room somewhere. OH-NO!!
 
Bestselling author and musician Tom Fletcher and illustrator Greg Abbott have created a monster that readers will fall in love with—and want to play with—again and again! It will get your own little monster tuckered out and snuggled in!
 
Don’t miss a single story in the Who’s In Your Book series!

  •  There’s a Monster In Your Book
  •  There’s a Dragon In Your Book
  •  There’s an Elf In Your Book
  •  There’s an Alien in Your Book

…and more books to come!

Children’s Choice Award Honor Book (K-2nd grade)

“Playful, engaging, and full of opportunities for empathy—a raucous storytime hit.” —Kirkus Reviews

Count the 12 days leading up to Halloween with this fun-filled picture book inspired by “The 12 Days of Christmas”—perfect for fans of Natasha Wing’s “The Night Before . . .” series!

On the first day of Halloween, ONE very eager kid starts trick-or-treating a little too early! On the second day, he and his brother create TWO scarecrows for their front porch. The third day? Let’s carve THREE pumpkins! Each of the 12 busy days leading up to Halloween are celebrated in this cumulative rhyming storybook based on “The 12 Days of Christmas.” Excited trick-or-treaters will love spotting all the fun ways a family gets ready for Halloween. 
 
Also available in the series: The 12 Days of Kindergarten.