Galaxy Zack – A Haunted Halloween

Ray O'Ryan's A Haunted Halloween is a Galaxy Zack story for 5 year olds about a boy from Earth who is absolutely certain ghosts aren't real.

What happens

Zack Nelson lives on the planet Nebulon now, and nobody there has even heard of Halloween. So at a sleepover he tells his friend Drake a proper ghost story, torch under the chin and everything (it's an astro-light, this is space after all).

Drake isn't scared at all. He's just confused. Then he announces that ghosts are real and one of them is his friend!

Zack laughs it off. But then strange things start happening. His games at the Starcade go wrong. His locker slams shut with nobody near it. His hyperphone floats out of his bag and drifts off down the corridor.

Is Zack being haunted? You'll have to read it to find out, but the answer is much more fun than frightening.

Who doesn't love a sleepover ghost story? The one Zack tells has a floating saltshaker and a picture flying off the wall, and nothing worse. It's a lovely gentle first taste of spooky for little ones.

Reading it feels like visiting a very friendly future. There are purple boingoberry smoothies and a house robot called Ira who calls him Master Just Zack. His twin sisters finish each other's sentences, which is super funny to read aloud.

It's number eleven in the Galaxy Zack series, but it's easy to pick up on its own. The first chapter tells you everything you need about the move from Earth.

There's something sweet about Zack missing Halloween, too. He video-calls his best friend Bert back home, who's trying on a costume for trick-or-treating. If your child has ever moved house or school, they might recognise that pull between old friends and new ones.

What to read next

If they'd like to see how Zack ended up on Nebulon in the first place, try Hello, Nebulon! His family packs up the space cruiser and he watches Earth shrink to a tiny blue dot out of the window.