Favorite Halloween Books for Kids
Listen, I don’t know about you, but Halloween is the best day of the year if you are a 3-6 year old. And once the day is done, talks of “next Halloween” last for the next 364 days. So, for the month of October (I’m a firm believer of giving every month their time to shine and holding out until that month to celebrate) I lean into my students’ love for all things Halloween, and we read all the best Halloween books every day! So here's a list I have compiled of all our very favorites as voted on by me and the amount of engagement from my students.
From our favorite Usborne Phonics Readers series, Spider Queen’s Halloween is another hit because of its silly rhyming story! Spider Queen wants to have a Halloween feast, but a thief is trying to ruin her plans. Read this one to see if the feast gets to happen!
Teaching Tip: As you read each page, restate the rhyming pair and have students repeat it after you. If they can already identify rhyming words, have them identify the rhyming pair!
The Pumpkin Who Was Afraid of the Dark is another cute rhyming story, a little boy helps a pumpkin try to overcome their fear of the dark. A cute story about friendship, a common childhood fear, and letting others help you.
Teaching Tip: Use this book as a conversation starter during morning meeting or classroom community building time. Talk about things that they may be afraid of and ways that we can ask for help when we need it and are afraid.
Another awesome phonics reader, Trick or Treat Parakeet is a fun rhyming story about a group of friends who come to Parakeet’s house to trick or treat but they’re met by a ghost! See if these friends will be spooked in this funny tale.
Teaching Tip: Use this book to talk about what you are going to be for Halloween (their all time favorite topic of conversation) and tie it into writing time by illustrating, labeling, and writing about your Halloween costumes!
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything is an all time favorite! This is a spooky tale of a woman walking through the woods as different objects and clothing items sneak up on her making strange sounds. But is she afraid? No! What will happen when she gets a mysterious knock at the door? You’ll have to read it to find out!
Teacher Tip: This is the BEST interactive read aloud! Involve students in acting out and making the sounds on each page. It is a repetitive building book, so each line is repeated and built upon on each page, making it one that students will begin to recite right away! (It is spooky so make sure you preread to assess if it is appropriate for your students).
Room on the Broom is one of the BEST books (Halloween or not), it is so loved that my daughter is even going as the witch for Halloween this year! Julia Donaldson writes a spectacular rhyming book about a witch who keeps loosing her positions as the wind blows, and new friends find them. As she continues on her journey picking up these new friends, her broom breaks and a hungry dragon that likes to eat witch with french fries appears! You’ll have to trust me on this one and read it to see how this story ends.
Teacher Tip: This story is a great opportunity to practice sequencing and retell. Practice talking through the different events in the story and the characters that come to the rescue for each one. Then, talk about problem and solution as they face the hungry dragon!
Froggy’s Halloween is a super simple, but engaging read from a favorite storybook character. Froggy does all the classic Halloween activities: pumpkin carving, decorating, and picking out a costume. As usual, something always goes awry for Froggy, but his trick-or-treating is still a success!
Teacher Tip: Use this read aloud to talk about family/holiday traditions. Does your family decorate for special occasions or holidays? Do they decorate only inside or outside too? You can also directly tie it in to Halloween with a group discussion about Halloween costumes, trick-or-treating routines/manners, and even designing your own jack-o-lantern carving design!
If you’re looking for a bit of a creepy, but also funny story, then Creepy Carrots is the right pick! Jasper gets a little greedy with his carrot eating and then one day the carrots start to follow him! This book is super engaging and my students always loved this one. (There’s also two others in the series: Creepy Pair of Underwear and Creepy Crayon that are excellent too!) The illustrations are also 10/10!
Teacher Tip: This is a great opportunity to bring up the topic of greed and not taking more than you need. I also liked to use this book in my writing time to really study the illustrations and how the author used shades of grey and black and only accent colors to make the book “feel” a certain way.
How to Make Friends with a Ghost is equal parts amazing illustrations, super cute storyline, and a great friendship themed book. The first time I read this one I knew it was going to be added to my favorite Halloween reads list! This story walks you through the important steps of befriending and caring for a ghost, and I promise you this will be one of the ones you’ll check out from the library and then realize you need to purchase for your Halloween collection!
Teacher Tip: This is a fabulous mentor text for how-to writing! Even if you don’t do how-to writing until later in the year, pull this text back out and use it to guide your writing block.
I hope this list get’s you started picking out your stack of Halloween reads for this October. If you’re in need of even more book ideas check out my Halloween Favorites list on Amazon, and our favorite Halloween read alouds and a bunch of Halloween activity books on PaperPie!
Happy Reading!
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