9 spine-tingling, rib-tickling stories
Published on: 16 October 2024
Author Martin Howard recommends the best stories to make you shiver and chuckle.
Who doesn’t love being creeped out by stories of ghouls and ghosts and strangely dragging footsteps in the attic, especially at this time of year?
And especially when spooky is served with a big helping of funny. Like brain jelly and I-scream, laughs and goosebumps just work together. I’ve been hooked on this classic combination since watching old black and white episodes of The Addams Family and The Munsters as a kid. Scooby Doo was my favourite cartoon.
Why is it such a powerful pairing? Well, it's just my opinion, but I think both horror and comedy are both more important genres for children than are generally credited. The world can — sadly — be a dark place and tales that help navigate that fear can be a step on the path to conquering it. Adding funny to the mix teaches us that laughter banishes terror, or at least takes the edge off it. There’s not a lot that is so horrible that it can survive a belly laugh.
There’s also something just so weirdly, terror-ticklingly right about ghoulish tales that also make us laugh.
It’s why The Addams Family, which was started as a series of cartoons in The New Yorker in 1938, is still spawning spin-offs almost a century later. It’s why the sequel to Beetlejuice is storming the box office this autumn and why A Nightmare Before Christmas is a cult classic.
As you’ve probably guessed, I am a huge fan of everything spooky and funny so I was delighted when BookTrust asked me to recommend a few of my favourite books that will make young readers howl with laughter this Halloween. Modesty prevents me from adding Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull, which is available from all good bookstores... Wait, what’s that? It doesn’t? Cool. Forget these other books and go read that. It’ll blow your wig off!
No, but seriously, bite your fingernails, prepare to cackle uncontrollably, and read these if you DARE...
The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey
“A is for AMY who fell down the stairs. B is for BASIL assaulted by bears...”
An alphabet primer for youngster where a child dies on every page is probably the most fabulously gruesome idea anyone ever had. Ever. Illustrated with Gorey’s atmospheric, sometimes very dark drawings (check out “K is for KATE”) this is a work of ghastly genius that probably should come with a warning. More sensitive children might want to stick with Julia Donaldson’s excellent Room on the Broom, but all three of my children, now in their twenties and only mildly traumatised, thought it was a hoot when they were little and all three can still recite the whole book from cover to cover.
Fairytales Gone Bad series by Joseph Coelho, illustrated by Freya Hartas
Written by the stunningly talented poet, Coelho’s Zombierella, Creeping Beauty, and Frankenstiltskin are a trio of brilliantly off-the-wall reads. Mashing up old fairy tales with classic horror is a hair-raisingly genius idea. These are old tales that have gone mouldy. Hidden in an unvisited part of the library, the stories have warped into something altogether more sinister in the dark. With gruesome twists, a lot of wit, and art by Freya Hartas, all three Fairytales Gone Bad books are gleefully ghoulish and packed with spooky joy.
Scream Street series by Tommy Donbavand
Before he was taken from us too early, I had the privilege of chatting with Tommy a few times and he was hilarious. He also gave great writing advice that I still follow. The Scream Street series is, for me, his best stuff. With reluctant werewolf Luke Watson as the main character, together with friends Cleo Farr (a tomboy mummy) and Resus Negative (a vampire), these books are a great way to get kids chuckling and to introduce them to classic horror tropes without making them (too) scared.
The Witches by Roald Dahl
You knew I was going to choose this, right? It’s a classic that had me at the horrible bald witches when I was a youngster. Dahl remains unmatched at creating strange and grotesque characters and The Witches is perfectly balanced between scary and funny for younger readers, with genuine frights and proper laughs all wrapped up in Dahl’s magical writing. It’s probably my favourite of his books, except — maybe — The Twits.
Stitch Head series by Guy Bass, illustrated by Pete Williamson
All right, I might be a little bit biased here because the illustrations in Stitch Head were drawn by Pete Williamson who also lent his talents to Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull. But not very biased because Stitch Head is exactly my kind of story. Following the adventures of a patched-together-by-a-mad-scientist boy, it is a glorious carnival of kooky, spooky and funny that is as good to look at as it is to read. It also has a whole lot of heart and I especially love the names of the cast and places in the story, too. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a village called Grubbers Nubbin? All in all, Castle Grotteskew is a grimly spookularious place to visit this Halloween.
The Thornthwaite Inheritance by Gareth P. Jones
I could have gone for a couple of Gareth’s books here — Death or Ice Cream? and The Considine Curse were also in the running. That said, you just cannot argue with the killer opening line of The Thornthwaite Inheritance: “Lorelli and Ovid Thornthwaite had been trying to kill each other for so long that neither twin could remember which act of attempted murder came first.” Is there any better way to start a story?
Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick
Jennifer Killick is the queen of scream, right? We can all agree on that. And Crater Lake is one of her best. With a perfect B-movie vibe, it begins with a bus load of children screeching to a halt on a back road and a bloody hand thumping the window. Of course, no one heeds the warning (do they ever?) and from there, things get weirder and weirder. Without spoilers, Killick weaves together bits and bobs of old horror movies and pop culture to create a distinctly scary and gigglesome chiller that is all her own. Read it, if you must, but... Don’t. Ever. Fall. Asleep.
Sticky Pines series by Dashe Roberts
Starting with The Bigwoof Conspiracy, the Sticky Pines books also channel an old B-movie vibe, which — as previously discussed — is just dandy with me. Throw in a littleScooby-Doo, X-Files and Stranger Things, plus characters slinging zingy dialogue around à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you have a winner of a spooky tale. Bonkers, creepy and full of twists, all is not what it seems in Sticky Pines. Love it.
Mort by Terry Pratchett
OK, it’s not strictly a children’s book — or particularly scary — but hear me out. Confident young readers who like to laugh will have no problem with this tale of a gangly young country boy who becomes Death’s apprentice. And it’s Pratchett, and therefore packed with funny and humanity. Every child deserves an introduction to Sir Terry. That should be a law. He did write books specifically for children but this is as good a jumping-off point into the brilliant Discworld as any of them.
Mallory Vayle and the Curse of Maggoty Skull by Martin Howard, illustrated by Pete Williamson, is out now.
