There’s something almost addictive about ghost stories around this age.
I remember being in middle school and I’d sit around with my friends as we’d tell tales and stories from an older sister’s friend’s cousin who ACTUALLY saw/experienced/heard about…
This obsession with the ghoulish and ghostly actually cemented a friendship with my now very dear friend. It resulted in being partners in crime in sneaking into scary movies, renting more every Friday and comparing notes on the latest Buffy episode (it was the 00’s okay?)
Anyway, without me incriminating myself too much, I definitely noticed this trend of ghost stories for tweens being very popular whilst I was teaching too.
For some kids this age, it’s an actual obsession, for others it’s a morbid curiosity and for some it’s a bit half torture and half intrigue.
Trying to find something to feed this appetite is tricky around this age. Most ghost stories are written for younger children (think Casper the friendly ghost or Addams Family vibes) or for teenagers and adults, where the scares genuinely keep you up at night. The 9 to 12 year old is somewhere in between and hard to cater for.
So this is my list of ghost stories for tweens, written for that exact reader. You can expect proper chills, real atmosphere, and not one of them will keep anyone awake at 2am. Every book on this page is in the Little Reads library right now.
What makes a ghost story right for this age
The best tween ghost stories understand that atmosphere beats gore every single time. A tapping sound inside a wall is scarier than anything graphic, because the reader’s imagination does the work.
The other thing I look for is a real story underneath the haunting. Grief, a new school, a family falling apart. The ghosts in the good ones are never just there to say boo. They mean something, and that is what makes a child put the book down changed rather than just spooked.
And the ending matters. At this age a ghost story should be a rollercoaster, not a jump scare. Frightening in the middle, safe by the last page.
(If your child is more of a general fright-fan than a ghost specialist, our hand-picked scary books for children shelf might be a better fit.)
The ghost stories I’d go to first
Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley
Seven Ghosts
Seven Ghosts is where I’d start for a confident reader.
Jake and the other finalists in a writing competition are invited to a stately house for a tour like no other, hearing the stories of the seven ghosts who haunt its halls.
But strange shapes and shadows are following Jake through the house.
Chris Priestley is the modern master of the campfire-tale, and this one will give your reader something to really stew over.
The Girl in the Lake by India Hill Brown
The Girl in the Lake
The Girl in the Lake is a little more heartfelt but still eerie.
Celeste is spending two weeks at her grandparents’ lake house, she has just failed her swim test, and the dark water terrifies her.
Then the house starts giving her reasons to be more frightened of what is inside it.
This one sits on our free shelf, so it is a good first test of whether ghost stories are your child’s thing at all.
The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story by Charis Cotter
The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story
The Dollhouse is the one for the younger end of this age band.
Alice’s parents are splitting up, and she is stuck for the summer in a huge, imposing old house where her mum is nursing a rich elderly lady.
Then she finds the dollhouse, and the dollhouse is the house.
Charis Cotter writes the sort of creeping wrongness that might make a 9 year old read one more chapter with the landing light on.
The Clackity by Lora Senf
The Clackity
The Clackity is the properly creepy one, for the reader who insists they cannot be scared.
Evie lives in Blight Harbor (the seventh-most haunted town in America) with her aunt, the local paranormal expert.
The one rule is to stay out of the abandoned slaughterhouse at the edge of town. Then her aunt disappears into it.
Strange, shivery and completely gripping for the top of this age range.
Shadowhall Academy: The Whispering Walls by Phil Hickes
Shadowhall Academy: The Whispering Walls
Shadowhall Academy: The Whispering Walls is every boarding-school nightmare come true.
Lilian starts at creepy, cold, bewilderingly large Shadowhall Academy, nervous about making friends.
Then she hears the tapping by her head at night, like someone in the wall trying to get her attention.
Phil Hickes wrote the Aveline Jones books, and he is one of the most reliable spooky-but-safe authors writing for this age right now.
A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle
A Greyhound of a Girl
A Greyhound of a Girl is a bit of a wild card, and has a bit more story than shivers.
Mary is a cheeky 12-year-old Dublin schoolgirl whose beloved granny is dying, and the ghost who turns up is her great-grandmother, with things to say about four generations of women in their family.
Roddy Doyle makes a ghost story about grief funny and warm. And it’s also on the free shelf.
Children’s ghost stories for the reader who scares easily
Not every child wants a full scare, and there’s no rush.
In my classroom the reluctant-to-be-scared readers were often the ones who might come to love them later on.
A funny entry point is R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly series, which we stock right through. Ghosts, jokes, zero nightmares. Karma Moon, Ghost Hunter plays the haunting as a mystery to solve, which suits the child who likes being clever more than being scared. And Evie’s Ghost is a lovely time-slip haunting for a more thoughtful reader.
If it is creepy-strange they like rather than ghosts as such, Books Like A Series of Unfortunate Events would be right up their street.
When they want something scarier
The two everyone will tell you about are Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Coraline, and everyone is right. Both are in the library, both are genuinely eerie, and both are best saved for the reader who has finished the list above and asked what is next.
For the child who wants a whole series to burn through, our Books Like Goosebumps guide covers the spooky series shelf. And when they are ready for skeletons with swagger rather than sheets, Books Like Skulduggery Pleasant is the step up.
Every ghost on this page, and 3,000+ hand-picked books behind them. Two of my six picks are on the free shelf (100+ free books on a free account), and the full library is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime. Just in time for the dark evenings.