Our Halloween book collection is one that is far from scary but still very festive and fun. The books our boys love to read in October before Halloween are mostly silly rather than scary but still often include Halloween themes like trick-or-treating, pumpkins, costumes, goofy monsters and more. I thought a roundup of some of our favorite Halloween books appropriate for young kids might be of interest for those out there with little ones who might enjoy getting into the Halloween spirit bookworm style!
Favorite Halloween Books for Young Kids
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Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Room on the Broom is one of our absolute favorite Halloween books. The rhyming is equal parts smart and adorable and the story lends itself well to adding in fun noises to keep kids engaged. With animals and a friendly witch as the main characters and a not-too-spooky dragon in the mix, Room on the Broom is Halloween kid gold! We love this author/illustrator duo’s other books (The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale are two of our all-time favorites) and this Halloween book is a slam dunk and an almost-nightly read from September through October in our house.
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The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda D. Williams, Illustrated by Megan Lloyd
You know those books you read as a child that you cannot wait to read with your own kids? That’s THIS book for me! I still remember stumbling upon The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything at Target when Chase was tiny and I instantly bought it because it was nostalgic for me but also a great kid-friendly read. The story incorporates repetition that our boys get really into and they practically have this one memorized! It’s also an easy one to add movements and silly voices to as the reader which only increases a little one’s enjoyment of this not-too-spooky story.
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Pete the Cat: Trick or Pete by James Dean
Our kids are huge Pete the Cat fans, so I had a feeling Trick or Pete would be a hit when my mom gave it to them last year. It’s a lift-the-flap style book (always a hit!) and each flap reveals things Pete sees while out trick-or-treating that aren’t as spooky as he initially thought they might be.
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Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O’Connell
Ten Timid Ghosts is a fun countdown counting book that centers around a witch who wants to move into a haunted house but first must scare away 10 timid ghosts who live there through various clever schemes. The tenth ghost is quite clever as well and may not let the witch get away with her ghost eviction goals!
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Bo the Bat by Alma Hammond, Illustrated by Zuzana Svobodova
If your kids are animal lovers and enjoy learning about creatures, Bo the Bat is a fantastic Halloween-themed read they’ll enjoy! It’s a story about a friendly bat that wants to trick-or-treat with children but they’re all scared of him so he sets out to tell them about all the awesome things bats can do. The story is cute (though the writing is admittedly not the best but our kids don’t seem to mind!), the pictures are fun and colorful and the end of the book includes bat facts so curious little minds can learn more about bats!
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The Halloween Tree by Susan Montanari, Illustrated by Teresa Martinez
Though most trees dream of becoming Christmas trees, this creative book centers around one grumpy tree who doesn’t like holiday lights, decorations or people and is relieved to be left behind at the end of the holiday season. As the years pass, children begin to play on the neglected tree and enjoy using their imaginations to turn the tree into various make-believe things and the tree’s heart begins to change. As the children’s parents consider chopping the tree down one year, the kids come together in an effort to save their beloved tree. In addition to being a sweet story, The Halloween Tree also has an underlying subtle message for kids about valuing things that are different and incorporates diversity in the parents and children in the illustrations which, as a parent, I appreciate.
For grabby little hands, Never Touch a Monster is a slam dunk! While it’s not technically a Halloween book, the monster theme is fun and still feels festive. Every page of this book has something to touch and feel and with vibrant pictures and silly rhymes, it’s a winner for toddlers who want to interact with their stories.
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The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone
Like the book mentioned above, The Monster at the End of This Book is not strictly a Halloween book but fits within a monster theme so we’re going to roll with it since monsters and Halloween go together in my book! This silly story cracks our boys up and they get so into it every time we read it!
This book is a toddler’s dream. It has 50+ flaps they can peek under and proved to be a hit with both Chase and Ryder beginning when they were just over a year old. Halloween Is Here is not at all spooky and perfect for introducing Halloween, costumes, pumpkin carving and the concept of trick-or-treating to little ones.
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I love this idea – thanks for sharing! I just ordered a few of these to start our Halloween book collection for my two-year-old.
Great roundup! My 2.5 year old lovesss The Scariest Book Ever. We read it several times a day. Room on the Broom, The Little Okd Lady who was not Afraid of Anything are big hits with him, too. He also is obsessed with Don’t Push the Button.
I’ve been using The Little Old Lady who was not Afraid of Anything and Room on a Broom constantly in speech therapy with kids. So awesome for working on language skills like comprehension, sequencing, making predictions/inferencing…problem solving.
This is such a cute collection of Halloween-themed books! Thank you for sharing. The Halloween Tree sounds so sweet and educational regarding accepting people who are different.
Julie,
I LOVE this post. Just the past couple weeks I’ve started trying to find fall themed books for my 16 month old. I’d love to see post like this seasonally to give ideas and share favorites! Thanks 🙂
I just bought The Ugly Pumpkin a few weeks ago for my coworker’s son and it is the cutest book about a squash that doesn’t understand why he isn’t being picked from the pumpkin patch and then he realizes he is really a squash. Is a book that covers Halloween and Thanksgiving and is sooo sweet!
Sounds adorable!! We haven’t read that one yet and will have to check it out. Thanks for sharing!
I pack away all our Christmas books with our decorations to get them out just once a year and the kids are always excited for them. I don’t do that with our Halloween books though we also don’t have that many and ours are mostly fall/autumn books. I like the idea of keeping them seasonal though so maybe I should separate them out!
I’m sure you know that Room on the Broom is also on Netflix and is super cute to watch as well.
Yes!!! We watched it over the weekend actually — though I think it may have been on Amazon Prime. I didn’t realize it was on Netflix, too!
My boys also love the book Skeleton for Dinner. It’s about two witches wanting to invite skeleton for dinner, but he misunderstands and thinks they want to have him for their dinner.
Love your list. Thanks for the recs.
Thanks for this post – I was just thinking about getting some Halloween books for our son (2.5) to make this season a bit more special – esp since we won’t be trick or treating. He’s too young to really enjoy that but I still want to make the season special. Our fave Halloween books are “Spookie Pookie” (we have every pookie book by Sandra Boynton as our son loves them) and “Little Blue Truck Halloween” – our son loves the lift the flaps!
My little one loves Pick a Pumpkin — it’s so beautifully illustrated! Highly recommend.
We had “The Monster at the End of This Book” when we were kids, and we loved it. My mother did a great job hamming it up about not wanting to turn each page. I just recently suggested that she find the book to read to her grandson, who is just a couple months younger than your Chase.
Aw what a good mama! So sweet!
We do this for each holiday too- though truthfully Halloween is my favorite! I just added Skeletons are Not scary and Gustavo the Shy Ghost to our collection- both huge hits for my Halloween loving little guys!
Great round up- thank you!
Thanks for sharing these! I requested several from my library for my boys to read 🙂
Great list! Our favorites right now are “Curious George goes to a Costume Party,” and “There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Ghost! ” 😉
Unrelated to Halloween, but we’ve been reading the Zoey and Sassafras series of chapter books and would definitely recommend for Chase. Lots of creatures!
Oh thank you!!! Always on the lookout for new books for him!
Thank you for compiling this, Julie! I ordered some Halloween books for my daughter and she’s loving reading them. I absolutely love the idea of storing holiday books and getting them out each year; I really love special holiday traditions. I’d love if you shared more book recommendations for other holidays! I’m hoping to get my daughter some Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. books.