Chilling Halloween Reads, Films, and TV Shows for Everyone
Halloween is coming up at the end of the month. To get in the proper “spooky” spirit, here are some great book, movie, and tv show suggestions for every age group.
Board Books
Halloween heroes! Illustrated by Nate Lovett
Join Chase, Marshall, Skye, and the rest of Nickelodeon’s PAW Patrol for Halloween tricks and treats. This sturdy board book is perfect for girls and boys ages 0-3.
Get on the case with the PAW Patrol! Chase, Marshall, Rubble, Skye, and the rest of Nickelodeon’s puppy heroes are on a mission to save their friends and protect the community of Adventure Bay, using their paw-some vehicles, tools, and teamwork.
If You’re Spooky and You Know It by Aly Fronis
Clap your hands for this spooky, Halloween-themed twist on the classic children’s song “If You’re Happy and You Know It!” The monsters in the book all want to show how spooky they are! Filled with spooky skeletons clapping hands, wicked witches stomping feet, hairy werewolves jumping up and down, sneaky vampires nodding heads, naughty mummies snapping fingers, and creepy Frankensteins honking noses, little ones will love this frightful, Halloween-themed twist on the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”!
Llama llama Trick or Treat by Anna Dewdney
Have a Happy Halloween with Llama Llama! Time to find the perfect costume, pick out a pumpkin for a jack-o’-lantern, and then go trick-or-treating with Mama and his friends! This board book, with short and simple rhyming text and a smaller format, is just right for introducing Llama Llama to the youngest of listeners!
Picture Books
Truck or Treat! by David Lewman
A new Big Golden Book for Halloween starring Nickelodeon’s Blaze and the Monster Machines! Nickelodeon’s Blaze and the Monster Machines are revved up for Halloween fun when that tricky Crusher takes everyone’s treats. Boys and girls ages 3 to 7 will thrill to this full-color Big Golden Book. Race into action with Blaze and the Monster Machines! Preschoolers will learn about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as they help Axle City’s greatest hero overcome Crusher’s cheating ways and save the day with Blazing Speed, spectacular stunts, and awesome transformations!
Bad Kitty, Scaredy-cat by Nick Bruel
Kitty wasn’t always such a scaredy-cat. She used to be brave and lionhearted and nervy. That is, until one late October day a group of terrifying monsters showed up on her doorstop and Kitty became VERY scared. Then she decided to take matters into her own paws. Bad Kitty is back in her first full-length picture book since A Bad Kitty Christmas (over 300,000 copies sold to date), just in time for another holiday! Now she’s up against something scary, something creepy, something more frightening than Puppy’s good moods: Halloween.
Peep and Egg: I’m Not Trick-or-Treating by Laura Gehl
Peep is so excited to go trick-or-treating with her friend Egg. She wants to visit the duck pond and the cow pasture to get treats. But Egg thinks Halloween is too scary, with frightening monsters possibly lurking everywhere! Peep tells her jokes because laughing helps you feel less scared. Egg is still not cracking. But soon Egg learns that maybe trick-or-treating is not so scary after all when you have a friend to hold on to.
Beginning Readers
Olivia Loves Halloween by Maggie Testa
Olivia gets ready for Halloween in this original Level 1 Ready-to-Read story. Olivia and her friend Francine are helping decorate the classroom for their Halloween party, but they can’t agree on the color scheme. Francine insists that Halloween colors are always orange and black, but Olivia wants to use her favorite color, red. Since the decorations won’t be “perfect,” Olivia decides to look for the perfect costume, instead. On the day of the party, when Olivia arrives in her costume, she finds a few surprises waiting for her…
Haunted Halloween by C.A. Krones
Hang on to your hats! George gets spooked when he spends his first Halloween in the country and hears the legend of No Noggin–a headless scarecrow that kicks people’s hats off on Halloween! The man with the yellow hat tells George it’s just a legend, but with the help of his friends Allie and Bill, George is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and find out once and for all if No Noggin really exists. This early reader features a festive bonus activity for even more Halloween fun with George!
Flat Stanley and the Haunted House by Jeff Brown
The Lambchops can’t wait to be spooked at a Halloween party! Arthur is excited about the haunted house, and Stanley wants to show off his limbo moves. But when they see a bully picking on their friend at the party, the boys know that they have to help. Soon, Stanley comes up with a plan that is flat-out hilarious!
Chapter Books
The Halloween Party from the Black Lagoon
Hubie has no costume for the scariest Halloween party ever. Too bad he can’t just go as the invisible man and stay at home. Plus, there will be a ton of monsters at the party. He’d better find a costume quick or he might become a tasty treat for all those cruel ghouls!
The Sleepy Hollow mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Aldens visit the upstate New York town where the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was set and discover a headless horseman mystery all their own! Their friend’s ghost tour business is threatened by a spooky figure on horseback who is throwing gory pumpkins. Who–or what–is haunting Sleepy Hollow?
The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler
A brand-new young chapter book series from Edgar Award winner Dori Hillestad Butler! When ghost boy Kaz’s haunt is torn down and he is separated from his ghost family, he meets a real girl named Claire, who lives above the town library with her parents and her grandmother. Claire has a special ability to see ghosts when other humans cannot and she and Kaz quickly form a friendship. The two join forces to solve the mystery of the ghost that’s haunting the library. Could it be one of Kaz’s lost family members?
Teen Books
The Zom-B chronicles by Darren Shan
B Smith doesn’t fully buy into Dad’s racism, but figures it’s easier to go along with it than risk the fights and abuse that will surely follow sticking up for Muslims, black, or immigrants. That is, until zombies attack. This bind-up of the first three novellas in Darren Shan’s Zom-B series leads B on a mad dash through the corridors of high school, a secret underground military complex, and the dangerous streets of a very changed London, making allegiances with anyone who has enough gall to fight off the deadly–and undead–attackers.
Long before the term vampire was born, long before Bram Stoker fictionalized this being’s ways, blood-drinking demons were banished to Earth by Michael’s host of Angels, or so the Bible describes. Now this rich, mesmerizing resource, written in 1900, sheds light on what happened hence to the three vampire bloodlines — especially the tortured souls known as the Belial. Interspersed are booklets, flaps, and letters between a young paranormal researcher who discovered the book in the 1920s and an oddly alluring woman who seeks his help. Among the phenomena explored are:
Adult Books
World War Z: The Complete Edition (Movie Tie-in Edition): An Oral History of the Zombie War is a new version of Max Brooks’ episodic zombie novel. The abridged versions of the original stories are now joined with new, unabridged recordings of the episodes that were not included in the original (abridged) version of the audiobook.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
(more in series by Steve Hockensmith, available in print or an ebook in Jasmine, plus a major motion movie and soundtrack are available)
Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is an audacious retelling of English literature’s most enduring novel. This expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem begins when a mysterious plague falls upon the quiet English village of Meryton–and the dead are returning to life!
Stephen King’s terrifying, classic #1 New York Times bestseller, “a landmark in American literature” (Chicago Sun-Times)–about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It.
Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry, the haunting is real. They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers.
Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.
Movies for the Whole Family
You’re in for a devil of a time when three outlandishly wild witches return from 17th-century Salem after they’re accidentally conjured up by some unsuspecting pranksters!
Summary from Amazon.com
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween while Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin.
Summary from imdb.com
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Monster Musical
Put on your favorite Halloween costume and get set for a spooktacular full-length adventure! Visit the creaky castle of kindly “Count Mickula” and help your Clubhouse pals solve a puzzling riddle: Who, or what, is making a curious clanging, banging noise? With the right Monster Mouseketools and help from YOU, this mystery will soon be history! Then, enjoy two more exciting episodes as you search for pirate treasure with Captain Mickey and don your dungarees for delightful fun down on the farm. Packed with singing, dancing, laughter and surprises, MICKEY’S MONSTER MUSICAL is a high-spirited treat that can’t be beat!
Summary from amazon.com
Movies/TV for Teens
A young teen struggles to make a decision between two vampire brothers and their supernatural lives. Soon after she discovers the truth her whole world turns upside down.
Summary from imdb.com
After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.
Summary from imdb.com
A medical resident finds that being a zombie has its perks, which she uses to assist the police.
Summary from imdb.com
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.
Summary from imdb.com
Movies/TV for Adults
Two brothers follow their father’s footsteps as “hunters” fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds including monsters, demons, and gods that roam the earth.
Summary from imdb.com
Madea winds up in the middle of mayhem when she spends a haunted Halloween fending off killers, paranormal poltergeists, ghosts, ghouls and zombies while keeping a watchful eye on a group of misbehaving teens.
Summary from imdb.com
An anthology series centering on different characters and locations, including a house with a murderous past, an insane asylum, a witch coven, a freak show, a hotel, a possessed farmhouse, and a cult.
Summary from imdb.com
Sheriff Deputy Rick Grimes wakes up from a coma to learn the world is in ruins, and must lead a group of survivors to stay alive.
Summary from imdb.com
A Walking Dead spin-off, set in Los Angeles, following two families who must band together to survive the undead apocalypse.
Summary from imdb.com
A contemporary prequel to Psycho, giving a portrayal of how Norman Bates’ psyche unravels through his teenage years, and how deeply intricate his relationship with his mother, Norma, truly is.
Summary from imdb.com
