Great spooky (but not too spooky) books for pre-school and kindergarten.
Looking for great Halloween books for a 5-year-old? Here are a few favourites in our house.
Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin by Tad Hills
The Duck & Goose books are perfect for 2-5 year olds. The chunky board books offer funny little stories about the two friends. In Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin they are hunting high and low for a pumpkin, everywhere but the pumpkin patch. These are great to read at bedtime for little kids. And beginner readers will be able to sound out most of the words and can enjoy flipping the pages and understanding the story.
Paw Patrol is unavoidable for this age. Although if you have tips on that, please share! Anyway, Pirate Pups! is based on the Paw Patrol episode “Pups and the Pirate Treasure”. The pups and Cap’n Turbot discover a treasure map that leads them to the treasure of Captain Blackfur, a pirate pup. Cute, not scary. The story is about solving a puzzle and looking for clues. This one is harder for 5 year olds to read on their own because there’s lots of text and longer sentences. Howl for Halloween is another option. This is based on the episode where the pups are dressed up for Halloween and think Cap’n Turbot’s ship is haunted.
The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen
If your child is afraid of the dark, I’m not entirely sure this book will reassure them. But Laszlo stops being afraid of the dark at the end of the story. We have lots of books at our house about the dark, sounds in the night, who’s there … and we read them with the lights off and a flashlight. So if you want to up the spooky then that’s a fun way to read.
Pete the Cat by James Dean
Pete the Cat (or Pat le chat) is a fun lift the flap book for Halloween. Pete is trick-or-treating and deciding what’s scary or not scary. As you can imagine, it’s all not scary in the end. There’s a certain kindergarten obsession with Pete the Chat, and no shortage of books in this series, including more with Halloween themes.
No shortage of Scooby Doo books! For pre-K and K, we have enjoyed the Level 2 readers. These versions use longer sentences than the Level 1, which focuses on sight words and things kids can sound out. There’s more to the story in the Level 2 books. And a huge fan favourite are the Choose Your Own adventure versions. I find the story lines can be very convoluted in the You Choose, but these are great books for Halloween, full of ghost stories, monsters, and mysteries solved!
National Geographic Kids: Creepy Crawly Collection
Four books in one. Frogs, Bats, Ants, and Snakes. These are slim volumes with great vocabulary words and interesting facts for curious kids. Even though the level 2 books offer longer sentences, they structure of the sentence is not too complex so new readers have to work hard but not too hard. Also there’s a vocabulary list at the beginning of the book so if you’re teaching kids to read, then you can start with spotting and sounding out a selection of words vs reading the full text. These books litter our house, and are loved by all of us. Did you know bats are not blind? In fact, they have excellent eyesight.
Amazing Minifigure Ultimate Sticker Collection by DK
DK has a ton of these cool reusable sticker books. Each two-page spread has a scene, some text, and then kids find the matching sticker at the back of the book and complete the picture.
The stickers come on and off easily so even kids with less dexterity and play easily. The matching the image and sticker is a good skills. And there are tons of extra stickers at the back in case a sticker tears or gets lost or given to a friend.
Halloween books—indeed all holiday books—are popular in my house so we tend to read these books all year round.