With Halloween just around the corner, it’s time to get into the spirit of spooks and ghouls! No matter if your kids are going to be dressing up as princess Spider-men or a heroic space-pirates, you can get their Halloween started off with the best kind of pre-Halloween fun by getting some inspiration from great ghost stories from modern authors.

If your youngsters like the idea of ghosts roaming the streets in the dead of night, or if they prefer a more subtle spectral encounter, then you can fire up their imaginations with any one of these great ghost stories.

There are ghost stories for older kids and ghost stories for younger kids. There are ghost stories for reading around a roaring bonfire and ghost stories for reading under the covers with a flashlight. Whatever level of scariness your kids looking for, there is probably a book just for them on this list.

List of Great Ghost Stories from Modern Authors

For younger students, some great ghost stories from literature to get started with can be found below. You can read these aloud with your spookiest (or funniest) voice and get the kids completely involved in the plot of a spooky story.

1. Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara (grd PK+) – A little witch figures out exactly what she needs to do with the ghosts she finds haunting her house.
2. Ghosts in Hotels by Lisa Owings (grd 1+) – This is a series of stories related to ghosts living in and haunting hotels.
3. Ghosts Don’t Eat Potato Chips by John Steven Gurney, Marcia Thornton Jones, and Debbie Dadey (grd 1+) – There are all sorts of mysterious and scary things happening in Aunt Matilda’s house. Is it a ghost? Or something scarier?
4. The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales by Maria Leach and Kurt Werth (grd 2+) – This is a series of ghostly and otherworldly stories to tell around the campfire.If your reader is a little older, he or she may want to try some spookier story-telling with quick stories to read alone or around the campfire.
5. Graveyard Shift by Chris Westwood (grd 3+) – Want to mix a little adventure with great ghost stories in literature? Read this story about the main character’s adventures in finding and saving lost ghosts.
6. Great Ghosts by Daniel Cohen (grd 3+) – This quick read introduces you to a series of ghostly stories.
7. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz (grd 3+) – These stories make you believe these ghosts exist in the real world through imaginative story-telling and terrifying illustrations.
8. The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia C McKissack and Brian Pinkney (grd 4+) – This series of stories by Patricia C. McKissack is derived from ghost stories from history.
9. Half Minute Horrors by Susan Rich (grd 6+) – This collection of ghostly yarns have been collected by some of the best writers for scary and incredible stories.
10. Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories by Joan Lowery Nixon (grd 6+) – This quick collection of ghost stories by Joan Lowery Nixon throws you in to ghostly fiction from the old Wild West.

Are there any books you recommend to get your spook fix for the season?

Author: Nicole Acevedo, Teacher Manager at A Grade Ahead