The Black Slide

J. W. Ocker's The Black Slide is a properly creepy school story for 9 year olds about a new playground slide that nobody wants to go down.

What happens

Griffin Birch sits by the back window of the fifth-grade classroom everyone calls the Torture Chamber. So he's the first to see it. The new slide is black, riveted, far too tall and far too steep, and to Griffin it looks like a giant tarantula leg.

Griffin isn't a brave boy. The playground is where Ozzie shoves him face first into the mulch. But when Ozzie promises to stop for the rest of the year if Griffin goes down the Black Slide, up he climbs. Laila, who is always on his side, has already told him that dares are for dummies. (She's right.)

What happens inside the slide is really frightening. For Laila, watching, it takes three seconds. For Griffin it goes on and on, through cold, roaring darkness. He comes out with a broken arm and the memory of a grinding voice calling him soft child.

Then the fifth graders start to disappear. Desks empty, one by one. Griffin watches a boy climb the ladder and never come out at the bottom, and his terrifying teacher Mrs Pitts insists that everybody's here.

The friendship is the warm heart of it. Griffin and Laila were born three days apart and live next door to each other. He keeps reptiles and feeds his garter snakes baby mice (she hates that). She's obsessed with space and wants to walk on Mars. She signs his bright yellow cast with three exclamation marks, just because she knows he hates them!

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This one is scary for real, not spooky-fun scary. There are vivid nightmares, including one where the swings turn into a gallows with a noose. Griffin's dad left six months ago after being mean to him, and his mum is clearly struggling.

A child who has bad dreams, or who's going through a hard time at home, might find it sits heavily. If your reader loves a real fright and a good friend to face it with, they'll probably race through it.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, try Dread Wood. Four classmates who can't stand each other are stuck at school for a Saturday detention, right next to a very creepy wood.