Halloween Books for Kids

Why it worksForty words over fourteen board pages that walk the whole ritual in order - choose a pumpkin, carve it, put the costume on, knock, say the words, count the sweets. For a two-year-old who has never done any of this, it is a rehearsal rather than a story, and it takes about twenty seconds to read.

Worth knowingNot scary in any respect - no ghosts, no dark, no jump. The flip side is that there is barely a plot, so a four-year-old will hand it back and ask for a proper book.

Why it worksMouse paints a face on each of ten pumpkins and names the feeling as he goes - happy, sad, surprised, silly - so it is a feelings book wearing a Halloween costume. A toddler can point at the face that matches their own mood, and the last spread lets them find their favourite again.

Worth knowingCompletely unscary, and only Halloween by association - there is no trick-or-treating and nothing spooky in it at all, which disappoints a child expecting monsters.

Why it worksEvery spread is a flap hiding a costumed farm animal, so the child lifts and guesses and then makes the animal noise - the same beep-plus-noise engine as the original, with a costume party bolted on. It is the rare Halloween book a one-year-old can actually operate.

Worth knowingFlaps in a board book get torn by under-twos; this is the copy that ends up taped. Nothing in it is frightening.

Why it worksDuck falls inside the pumpkin he is carving, gets stuck wearing it, and Pig and Mouse scream because a monster is coming. The whole joke is that the reader can see it is only Duck while the characters cannot, and a three-year-old is delighted to be the one who knows.

Worth knowingThe monster is revealed as Duck within two spreads, so the scare never lands - but Pig and Mouse do shout 'AAAAAH!' in huge type, and a child who dislikes shouting will flinch at that rather than at anything spooky.

Why it worksIt is The Enormous Turnip with a witch, a ghost, a vampire and a mummy pulling, and each one arrives boasting 'I'm bigger than you' and fails anyway. The refrain repeats verbatim four times, so by the third character the child is reciting the whole thing, and the bat who actually solves it is the smallest one there.

Worth knowingA vampire and a mummy appear, but they are queuing politely and end up eating pie together - the tone is folk tale, not fright. Long for a two-year-old at nearly 700 words.

Why it worksIt is the nursery rhyme they already chant at daycare, so the child arrives knowing the words - 'Oooooh went the wind, and OUT went the light' is the bit they wait for, and you can black out the room on cue. Seventy-four words means you can do it three times before they get bored.

Worth knowingThe lights-go-out line is the one moment that can unsettle a nervous two-year-old, and it lands harder if you do the sound effects. Read it flat the first time and see how it goes.

Why it worksDie-cut pages build a monster's face feature by feature, then the child orders each feature away - 'GO AWAY, big green face!' - until the page is black again. It hands a frightened child the controls, which is why it is the book to reach for when the monster-under-the-bed phase starts, not the one to avoid.

Worth knowingSome two-year-olds baulk at the assembled face on the middle spread. If that happens, start at the back and read it forwards - the monster disappearing first, then appearing - and it stops being a problem.

Why it worksA countdown from ten to one where each pumpkin is taken by a different Halloween character - a witch, a mummy, a skeleton - and the page turn always reveals who. The child counts what is left before you read the number, so the maths and the suspense are the same action.

Worth knowingThe art is graphic and flat rather than gruesome, but the pumpkins do vanish one by one into a haunted house, and a very literal three-year-old may want reassurance about where they went.

Why it works'Hic, hic, hic' punctuates every single spread while the skeleton tries showering, brushing his teeth and carving a pumpkin, and the child supplies the hiccup every time. Ghost's cure at the end - holding up a mirror - is a genuine laugh a four-year-old can explain back to you.

Worth knowingA skeleton doing ordinary domestic chores reads as comic to most children, but a small number find a walking skeleton itself unsettling regardless of what it is doing. Show the cover first; the reaction to that is the whole answer.

Why it worksLittle Baby Mummy is playing hide-and-seek and refuses to go to bed, and meets a ghost, a bat and a vampire on the way - each of whom is politely unhelpful. It is a bedtime-stalling book in Halloween dress, and the pun in the title is the joke a four-year-old finally gets and then repeats for a week.

Worth knowingThe monsters are all drawn friendly and the tone is affectionate, but the setting is a dark graveyard at night for most of the book. Worth previewing if your child is already wary of the dark.

Why it worksClomp, clomp. Wiggle, wiggle. Shake, shake. The little old lady is followed home by shoes, trousers, a shirt, gloves, a hat and a pumpkin head, and every noise stacks on top of the last, so the final page is the child performing six sounds in sequence from memory. Her solution - give the scarecrow a job - is why nobody ends up frightened.

Worth knowingThe chase through the dark wood is the only tense stretch, and it resolves into a scarecrow, but a three-year-old who is already wary of the dark may need the ending explained before you start.

Why it worksJasper Rabbit is stalked by the carrots he has been pulling up, and the book is staged like a black-and-white thriller - orange is the only colour on the page, so the carrots find your eye before you read a word. The twist ending flips who the victim is, and a five-year-old will want to go straight back to the start.

Worth knowingThe one on this list that can genuinely frighten. The shadows-at-the-window and shapes-in-the-bedroom spreads are built to unsettle, and under-fives sometimes will not have it a second time. For a sensitive three-year-old, choose almost anything else here.