2025 Best Halloween Books for Kids: Kid-Approved Picks From A Classroom Halloween Council
Last Wednesday, I was sweeping glitter off my third-grade classroom floor after our Halloween decoration craft, when the five members of our Children’s Halloween Council clustered around my desk, arguing over a stack of 22 new picture books and graphic novels. Mia’s neon orange hoodie had a half-stuck candy corn on the cuff, Javi clutched his notebook covered in vampire stickers, and the whole room still smelled like the spiced apple cider we’d had for snack.
Last year, I had three different parents ask me for Halloween book recommendations in one week, all saying the same thing: the lists online are all the same 10 books from 20 years ago, or they’re either too babyish or way too scary for their kids. So at the start of September this year, I put out a call for volunteer book testers, any kid in 1st through 4th grade who loved Halloween and reading. We ended up with five kids, who meet once a week after school to test new releases, vote on what stays, and write their own little reviews for the list we send home to every family at our school. This year’s 2025 list just got finalized, except for the two last-minute additions my own son begged me to add this weekend.
The fight that afternoon was over The Glitter Witch’s Halloween Trick, a big fancy picture book the publisher sent me that I thought would be a hit. It has glitter on every page, and it follows a witch who tricks trick-or-treaters into eating candy that turns them into toads. Mia was the first to say it should get cut. “She’s just mean for no reason,” she said, flipping to the end. “She doesn’t even learn her lesson. She just thinks it’s funny. That’s stupid.” Javi nodded along—he said when he read it to his 5-year-old brother, his brother asked if witches were really going to turn him into a toad at the neighborhood Halloween party. That’s when I realized something I’d been missing for years: as adults, we look at the pretty pictures and the glitter and think it’s a fun Halloween story, but kids don’t process it that way. They’re still learning to tell the difference between a story joke and a real threat, and random, unpunished meanness doesn’t feel playful to them—it feels unsettling. We cut the book that day.
What surprised me most about building the list with kids is that they didn’t want to sort it by age, like every adult list I’ve ever seen. They sorted it by vibe: No Scare Just Cozy, A Little Spooky No Jump Scares, and A Bit Creepy For People Who Like That. It makes so much sense—my 10-year-old was scared of any spooky content at 7, and now he begs for ghost stories before bed. Comfort levels change, even year to year, and rigid age cut-offs don’t account for that.
The top pick for the No Scare category is The Stuffed Pumpkin Parade, the book 2nd grader Lila pushed hard for. It follows a new kid who can’t afford a store-bought costume, so he dresses up as his worn stuffed pumpkin that he’s had since he was a baby. He’s scared no one will like his costume, but by the end of the parade, all the other kids think it’s the best one there. Lila wrote the review for it: “I was the new kid last year and this feels like how it feels. You don’t need a cool costume to have fun.” Parents love it because it’s relatable, it has no scares, and it names that quiet nervousness a lot of kids feel before big Halloween events that no one talks about.
Javi’s pick took the top spot in A Little Spooky: The Shadow In My Closet Doesn’t Like Candy, a early reader graphic novel about a 7-year-old who swears there’s a monster in his closet, and hides all his candy from it the night before Halloween. Turns out the shadow isn’t a monster—he just wants a piece of chocolate because he never gets to go trick-or-treating. Javi’s review says: “It feels scary for three pages but it’s not. I’m scared of the dark too and this made me feel better.” As a teacher, this is exactly the kind of Halloween book I love. A lot of parents ask me if they should avoid all spooky books for their kids, but small, controlled doses of fear help kids practice talking about what scares them. If a kid can close a book if it’s too much, or talk through how the “monster” turned out to be just lonely, they’re more likely to tell you when something else is scaring them—like a bad dream or a kid at school. The concrete tip I pass on to parents is simple: just read the first 10 pages together with your kid, then ask “Is this too spooky for you, or do you want to keep going?” No shame if they want to put it down, even if it’s supposed to be for their age group. Their comfort level is what matters.
For older kids who want actual atmosphere, the top pick in A Bit Creepy is The Secret of the Abandoned Corn Maze, a collection of short middle grade stories about small town Halloween legends, no gore, just quiet, eerie twists. The kids loved that it doesn’t rely on jump scares to be interesting.
After the council finished voting, we printed 150 copies of the list to send home. That night, I brought the leftover books home, and my 10-year-old flipped through the list and said I was missing two new graphic novels that all his friends are obsessed with right now. He’s right—we only got those two last week, so the council didn’t have time to test them. We’re going to do that after school tomorrow, and add an addendum to the list before we send it out.
It’s not a perfect list, and it doesn’t have all the classic Halloween books that everyone already knows about. But every book on it got a kid’s stamp of approval, not an adult’s idea of what kids should like. I’ve already had three parents tell me they picked up a book from the list that their kid never would have picked out on their own, and they’ve read it every night for a week. That’s good enough for me. We’re still adding, still testing, and that’s how it should be. Halloween books aren’t one size fits all, anyway.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » 2025 Best Halloween Books for Kids: Kid-Approved Picks From A Classroom Halloween Council