Spooky Is Not a Season

Summer is not always as sunny as we pretend. It is bright, yes, and hot, and full of popsicles and pool bags and sunscreen. But summer is also the season of late sunsets, strange noises in the trees, moths tapping at windows, thunderstorms rolling in after dark, and children staying awake just long enough for the ordinary world to become delightfully frightening. A backyard can feel bewitched after 9 p.m. A beach can become eerie under the moon. A campground can turn every snapped twig into a possible monster. Summer has always been the perfect setting for ghost stories.

Summerween understands that spooky is not a season so much as a feeling. Sometimes the best frightening story is not told on a cold October night, but in June, when the air is sticky and every ordinary shadow looks a little suspicious. Since Summerween is officially celebrated on June 22, this feels like the perfect time to let a little Halloween feeling creep into summer reading.

Here are six spooky, summery picture books I recommend.

Night Animals by Gianna Marino is one of my favorite kinds of spooky picture books because it understands that children are often very willing to be scared as long as the book is also willing to be funny. The story follows a possum, a skunk, a wolf, and a bear as they panic over the mysterious “night animals” lurking in the dark. Of course, the joke is that they are the night animals, but Marino lets the joke build beautifully. Each new creature enters with just enough drama to raise the stakes, and each one is somehow more frightened than the last.

What makes the book work especially well for summerween is that it feels like the kind of fear children actually understand. Not gothic castles or ancient curses, but the strange vulnerability of being outside after dark. The woods are black. The eyes are glowing. Every sound feels vaguely unsettling. Then the book turns that fear inside out and lets kids laugh at it. That is a very good use of spookiness in a picture book. It gives children the pleasure of being nervous, but it also gives them a way out. By the end, the darkness has not disappeared, but it has become ridiculous, because sometimes silly is the perfect antidote for scary.

There’s a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers is one of my standbys because it does something deceptively simple and does it very, very well. The book follows a young girl through a grand old house as she tells the reader she has heard there may be ghosts inside, though she has never seen one herself. The joke, of course, is that the ghosts are everywhere. Jeffers uses translucent pages to let the ghosts appear and disappear as the reader moves through the house, which gives the whole book a built-in sense of discovery. It is spooky, but not frightening, and just interactive enough to make a group of children feel like they are in on the secret.

If you read this one to an audience of children, use those translucent pages to your advantage. Before turning the page and revealing where the ghosts are hiding, pause and ask the children where they think the ghost will appear. Behind the chair? On the stairs? In the corner? Floating above someone’s head? This small bit of anticipation makes the book feel almost like a magic trick. The children get to search the illustrations, make predictions, and then experience the delight of being right, or the more thrilling joy of being completely surprised. It is a perfect example of a picture book that understands the importance of illustrations. The page turn is not just how the story moves forward. It is the joke, the reveal, and the ghostly little thrill.

There Are No Bears in This Bakery by Julia Sarcone-Roach is a wonderful choice for summerween because it has the plot of a little nighttime mystery. The story follows Muffin, a cat who knows his neighborhood very well and takes pride in keeping watch after dark. When he hears strange noises coming from the bakery, he goes to investigate. There are growls. There are shadows. There are signs that something large and possibly bear-shaped may be inside. Of course, the title insists there are no bears in this bakery, which is exactly the kind of denial that makes a child lean forward as you read.

What I love about this book is that it has suspense without real danger. The nighttime setting gives everything a slightly spooky feeling, but the story is ultimately warm, funny, and generous. Muffin is also a very satisfying picture book narrator. He is confident, observant, and perhaps not quite as in control of the situation as he believes. It also has that excellent read-aloud quality where children can enjoy knowing, or at least strongly suspecting, more than the character does. This is the perfect pick for kids who love mysteries and don’t buy into ghosts.

Flashlight by Lizi Boyd is nearly perfect for summerween. A child moves through the dark with a beam of light, and the flashlight reveals the hidden life of the nighttime woods. In the yellow light, the child finds animals, plants, and small surprises waiting in the blackness. The book captures that very specific summer feeling of being outside after dark, when the world has not changed exactly, but it no longer feels entirely familiar. Everything is still there, but it has become secretive. The woods are not dangerous so much as awake.

Because Flashlight is wordless, it works best as a book children explore closely rather than a traditional group read-aloud. That is part of its charm. A child can “read” it no matter their reading level, following the beam, noticing what changes, and building the story from the pictures. It is also lovely as a one-on-one book, with an adult sitting beside a child and letting the child interpret the plot. What do they see? What do they think is happening? What did the flashlight reveal that was hidden before? The book gives children the satisfying feeling that they are not just listening to a story. They are discovering it.

Vampirina at the Beach by Anne Marie Pace, illustrated by LeUyen Pham is probably the most literal summerween pick on this list, in the best possible way. Vampirina and her family head to the beach for a moonlit night of surfing, sandcastles, snacks, and spooky seaside fun. The joke of the book is not that Halloween has been dropped awkwardly into summer, but that vampire logic has been applied very sincerely to a beach day. Sunscreen becomes irrelevant. Moonlight is ideal. The ordinary happenings of a summer outing are still recognizable, but they have been tilted just enough to become deliciously strange.

LeUyen Pham’s illustrations are a huge part of why the book works, and readers may recognize her art from books like The Princess in Black series, Bear Came Along, and Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn. She gives the beach scenes so much movement and expression that the whole thing feels like a charming nighttime vacation, full of visual jokes and background details. Vampirina herself is endearing without becoming bland, and the other monsters never feel generic. There is a playfulness to the art that keeps the spookiness light, bright, and accessible. This is a good choice for children who like cozy cryptids, supernatural beaches, and Wednesday Adams-adjacent heroines.

Hardly Haunted by Jessie Sima is a soft little haunted house story with a surprisingly tender heart. The main character is a house who begins to worry that she might be haunted. She creaks. She rattles. She makes strange sounds in the wind. She tries very hard to be quiet and normal, which is, of course, a deeply relatable picture book problem. The spooky elements are there, but they are softened through character and humor. This is not a book about being frightened by a haunted house. It is a book about a haunted house being frightened of herself.

That is what makes it such a good summerween pick. It has all the right ingredients, creaks and shadows, strange noises, and one very old (and very nervous) house. But underneath the spookiness, the book is really about wanting to be loved as you are. Jessie Sima lets the haunted-house premise become a story about self-acceptance without flattening the fun out of it. The result is sweet, funny, and just eerie enough. It is a lovely choice for children who want something spooky in theory, but still want to be tucked safely back into warmth by the final page.

A few honorable mentions are too well-known to need full reviews, but still belong on any summerween list. Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies, Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown, and The Little Shop of Monsters by R. L. Stine and Marc Brown.

I’ll be livestreaming a video review of all these featured picture books on Thursday, June 18, at 7:30 PM Central Time. During the stream, viewers will get to see pages from the books, hear some of my favorite lines, and watch demonstrations of how I would use each book as a read-aloud or one-on-one with a child. At the end of the stream, paying subscribers will also have the chance to win one of the featured books through a raffle.

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