Night Frights 1 – The Haunted Mustache

Joe McGee's The Haunted Mustache is a spooky and very silly adventure for 8 year olds about a town that bolts its doors every October 19 because of a ghostly moustache.

What happens

It's the first Night Frights book. In Wolver Hollow everyone wears a moustache on that date, real or fake, and nobody has ever told the children why. Then their teacher, Mr Noffler, finally tells Parker's fifth-grade class the local legend.

Back in 1888 a quarry worker called Bockius Beauregard was blown to bits in a gunpowder explosion. His magnificent moustache was the only thing left of him. And every year since, so the story goes, it comes back looking for a new lip to live on. Ew!

Parker and his best friend Lucas run the Midnight Owl Detective Agency, and this is exactly the mystery they've been waiting for. They visit a VERY creepy library, where the librarian seems to appear from nowhere. Then they team up with Samantha von Oppelstein, a classmate who paints her nails black and likes writing poetry in the graveyard.

Their plan involves a tub of salt, a tin of Handsome Hank's moustache wax and sneaking out on the one night of the year when everyone else is locked in. What could go wrong?

It's a lovely mix of funny and shivery. Is it silly that the thing chasing them is a moustache? Absolutely. But when it floats over a grave glowing pale blue and the crickets suddenly stop chirping, it's properly creepy!

Samantha is a real star. She's cool, she doesn't scare easily and she always seems to know a bit more than the boys, which they find very annoying.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The legend comes with some grim details played for laughs, like a farmer who dies of fright holding the bloody moustache and a caretaker found dead among the gravestones. The friends also break a curfew, climb into a cemetery at night and hide in a crypt full of rats. For a child who gets spooked at bedtime, that could be a lot. If your reader loves a fright with a big grin attached, it's a treat.

What to read next

If they're hungry for more shivers, try The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, where a boy moves to a house on the edge of a Florida swamp and lies awake listening to something howl.