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The Kids Are All Right

Halloween Board Books and Picture Books to Celebrate Spooky Season

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Margaret Kingsbury

Contributing Editor

Margaret Kingsbury grew up in a house so crammed with books she couldn’t open a closet door without a book stack tumbling, and she’s brought that same decorative energy to her adult life. Margaret has an MA in English with a concentration in writing and has worked as a bookseller and adjunct English professor. She’s currently a freelance writer and editor, and in addition to Book Riot, her pieces have appeared in School Library Journal, BuzzFeed News, The Lily, Parents, StarTrek.com, and more. She particularly loves children’s books, fantasy, science fiction, horror, graphic novels, and any books with disabled characters. You can read more about her bookish and parenting shenanigans in Book Riot’s twice-weekly The Kids Are All Right newsletter. You can also follow her kidlit bookstagram account @BabyLibrarians, or on Twitter @AReaderlyMom.

Now that October is here, it’s officially spooky season. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and judging by the number of excellent children’s books about Halloween released every year, I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve rounded up five of my favorite new board books and picture books about Halloween, and next week, I’ll review my favorite new middle grade and early readers about Halloween.

Cover of Trunk or Treat by by Hannah Eliot & Lydia Jean

Trunk or Treat by Hannah Eliot & Lydia Jean

Trunk-or-treats are really popular where I live, and this rhyming lift-the-flap board book puts a fun spin on them, with ghoulish Halloween characters inviting trick-or-treaters to open the trunks to their vehicles. Witch’s car flies high, while Werewolf’s has a rock band inside. The flaps in this are quite sturdy, so will hopefully resist toddler tugging for longer than a day.

Cover of On Top of Linguine: An Eye-Popping Parody by Brian Biggs

On Top of Linguine: An Eye-Popping Parody by Brian Biggs

I was not expecting to love this board book as much as I do, but it is so delightfully funny. It’s a sing-along board book to the tune of “On Top of Old Smokey.” When Frankenstein sneezes, Skeleton’s eyeball lands on the linguine, all covered with cheese. The eyeball continues rolling and bouncing away as Frankenstein, Skeleton, and a black cat follow, down an alley and to a graveyard. This board book is absolutely hilarious and has a plastic eyeball for the roving eye.

Cover of Trick-or-Treating in the City by Tiffany D. Jackson & Sawyer Cloud

Trick-or-Treating in the City by Tiffany D. Jackson & Sawyer Cloud

Janelle is going to be a doctor for Halloween this year, but she’s not sure where she’s going to go trick-or-treating. Usually, her mom drives her out to the suburbs, but this year she has to work, and her dad is working in his convenience store. Her school friends all offer different ideas for where to trick-or-treat, from apartment complexes loaded with candy to a Halloween ball at a recreation center. As she hears everyone’s trick-or-treating stories, she comes up with the perfect Halloween plan. This is a fun Halloween read, especially for city kids, who really do have so many more choices than I did at my rural childhood home!

Cover of I Got the Spooky Spirit by Connie Schofield-Morrison & Frank Morrison

I Got the Spooky Spirit by Connie Schofield-Morrison & Frank Morrison

This is the fourth book in the wonderful onomatopoeia-filled picture book series starring a Black girl who’s got rhythm. And for Halloween, she’s got the spooky spirit, too. Leaves are crunch crunching and the apples are splashing when kids go bobbing. The main character, in her vampire-witch queen costume, is ready for fun at a Halloween party. Like the other three books in the series, this is a wonderful read-aloud, and Morrison’s illustrations are so evocative of fall and Halloween.

Cover of Spooky Poems Aloud: 25 Poems to Frighten and Delight by Joseph Coelho & Daniel Gray-Barnett

Spooky Poems Aloud: 25 Poems to Frighten and Delight by Joseph Coelho & Daniel Gray-Barnett

These scary poems remind me of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark in poetry format. There are some genuinely scary poems in this collection, but also silly ones! Coelho explores different types of poems, from limericks of fear to whispers and repeating lines. With each poem, he invites readers to write their own poems using the same techniques, which would make this a wonderful addition to classroom or homeschool libraries, or just plain fun for any kid. Poems depict skeletons in the basement, creepy, hungry spiders, prankster ghosts, melting zombies, and so much more. Coehlo has several similar poetry collections, but kids will love this monstrous one. My daughter decided to write her own spooky poems about black cats after reading it today.

If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, X @AReaderlyMom, Bluesky @AReaderlyMom, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts, and if you’re a Nashville local, subscribe to my Hey Nashville newsletter. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.