10 Spooky Audiobooks for Kids to Enjoy This Halloween
Happy Halloween week! 🎃
With the night’s drawing in and the kids off for half term, now is the perfect time to celebrate the spooky season with a family-friendly audiobook. Whether they love re-listening to a classic or prefer something new, there’s plenty to choose from - especially if they’re taking part in a reading challenge.
Whether your little ones are die-hard Halloween fiends or more on the scaredy-cat side, we’ve put together a brilliant selection of audiobooks packed with Halloween hallmarks - think witches, wizards, and things that go bump in the night! There’s something for everyone.
1. Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan
Kicking off the 12-part young adult saga, A Living Nightmare centres on Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, who get tickets to the titular circus. However, Steve recognises that one of the performers, Mr. Crepsley, is a vampire…
Steve confronts the vampire after the show finishes, but his motives are surprising. In the shadows of a crumbling theater, a horrified Darren eavesdrops on his friend and the vampire, and is witness to a monstrous, disturbing plea. As if by destiny, Darren is pulled to Mr. Crepsley and what follows is his descent into the dark and bloody world of vampires
Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan is available for members to borrow here.
2. Lockwood & Co. Book 1: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud
The beloved British supernatural detective series is set in an alternate world in which for fifty years, the nation has been plagued by ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have formed in result, with Lucy Carlyle – a promising young agent looking for work in London – joining the smallest most ramshackle agency in the city, run by the charismatic Anthony Lockwood.
When one of their cases goes horribly wrong, Lockwood & Co. have one last chance of redemption. Unfortunately, this involves spending the night in one of the most haunted houses in England and trying to escape alive. Set in a city stalked by spectres, The Screaming Staircase is the first in a chilling new series full of suspense, humour and truly terrifying ghosts.
Lockwood & Co. Book 1: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud is available for members to borrow here.
3. The Witches by Roald Dahl
A spooky classic from the beloved children’s author, The Witches follows Bruno Jenkins and his grandmother as they uncover a deadly plot…
The Witches have a motto: One child a week is fifty-two a year. Squish them and squiggle them and make them disappear. The Grand High Witch of All the World is the scariest of the lot, but one boy and the grandmother he adores have a plan to get rid of the witches for good.
The Witches by Roald Dahl is available for members to borrow here.
4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. As our story opens, a family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here - one of whom was his own grandfather - were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow - impossible though it seems - they may still be alive
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is available for members to borrow here.
5. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
Like a car alarm, bagpipe music, or a doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, hearing this all-new audio edition of The Bad Beginning will only upset you. This unique multi-voice recording brings the first book in Lemony Snicket's alarming A Series of Unfortunate Events to such terrible life that no one should really have to experience it.
Unless you have an ear for such ghastly details as a tragic fire, a nefarious villain, itchy clothing, and cold porridge for breakfast, all narrated in chilly detail by the distinguished, and disturbed, Tim Curry with a team of talented readers, you would be better off listening to something else
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket is available for members to borrow here.
6. Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine
11-year-old Josh and 12-year-old Amanda just moved into the oldest and weirdest house on the block-the two siblings think it might even be haunted! But of course, their parents don't believe them.
You'll get used to it, they say. Go out and make some new friends. But the creepy kids are not like anyone Josh and Amanda have ever met before. And when they take a shortcut through the cemetery one night, Josh and Amanda learn why.
Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine is available for members to borrow here.
7. The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence by Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya
There's something fishy going on at school . . .
When twelve-year-old Marcus kicks his favourite football over the school fence, he knows he's never getting it back. Nothing that goes over that wall ever comes back. But when Marcus gets a mysterious note inviting him to join the Breakfast Club Investigators, he is soon pulled into an exciting adventure with his new mates Stacey, Lise and Asim to solve the mystery and get his football back!
Dive into an exciting and mysterious adventure full of fun-filled friendships, fantastical creatures and incredible investigations by the #1 bestselling author Marcus Rashford!
The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence by Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya is available for members to borrow here.
8. The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy
Hold on to your broom for magical mayhem! Lovable but disaster-prone Mildred Hubble is a trainee at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, but she's making an awful mess of it. She keeps getting her spells wrong and crashing her broomstick. Yet she manages to get by until she turns Ethel, the teacher's pet, into her deadly enemy and chaos ensues . . .
The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy is available for members to borrow here.
9. The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell
From the author of beloved series How to Train Your Dragon, comes this the story of a young boy Wizard and a young girl Warrior who have been taught since birth to hate each other like poison; and the thrilling tale of what happens when their two worlds collide.
Xar is a Wizard boy who has no Magic and will do anything to get it. Wish is a Warrior girl, but she owns a banned Magical Object, and she will do anything to conceal it. In this whirlwind adventure, Xar and Wish must forget their differences if they're going to make it to the dungeons at Warrior Fort. Where something that has been sleeping for hundreds of years is stirring.
The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell is available for members to borrow here.
10. Hedgewitch by Skye McKenna
Cassie Morgan has run away. After seven years spent waiting for her mother to return, she flees her dreary boarding school and sets out to find her. But the world outside her school is full of hidden magic and children have been going missing.
With the help of a talking cat and a flying broom, Cassie escapes to the enchanted village of Hedgely. There she will begin her training in the practical skills of witchcraft with the Hedgewitch, who watches over the Hedge, the vast forest that marks the border between England and Faerie.
Hedgewitch by Skye McKenna is available for members to borrow here.
