Half-Minute Horrors

Half-Minute Horrors, collected by Susan Rich, is a book of tiny scary stories for 10 year olds, each one short enough to read in about the time it takes to turn out the light.

What happens

Some are just a few lines long. One is a single haiku about clowns. Even the longest only takes a couple of minutes. And almost every one ends on a twist that makes you go back and read it again.

It's a real who's who of children's writers too. R.L. Stine, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Jenny Nimmo, Joseph Delaney and Tui T. Sutherland are all in here, plus loads more, each trying to scare you as fast as they possibly can.

Some of them are more funny than frightening. A spooky mansion doesn't scare the narrator one bit (not the cobwebs, not the blood on the walls) until he meets the clown. Swarms of flying moustaches attack a boys' school. A boy is sure there's a stranger living in his wardrobe, and when he finally opens the door, the boy inside screams just as loudly.

Others are genuinely creepy. A little girl asks her mum to sit with her until she falls asleep, and the last line changes everything you thought you'd just read. A hole in the sand at the beach seems like the best game ever, until it gets dark.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

A few are properly nasty. A fisherman finds a woman's hand inside a shark. A girl calmly lets a bully get dragged under the water in a hot tub. A doll's house family is found hanged, drowned and with Granny's head in the oven. There are knives, zombies and a lot of blood, even if none of it lasts long.

So it's not one for a child who lies awake after a scary film. For a reader who LOVES being scared and wants to share the shock with a friend, it's brilliant. And because every story is so short, it's perfect for reading one or two aloud at a sleepover and watching everyone's faces.

What to read next

If they turn out to be a horror fan and want something longer, try R.L. Stine's Zombie Town. Twelve-year-old Mike hates scary films, but his best friend Karen drags him to one anyway, and they're the only two people in the cinema.