Illustration by Stephen Gilpin

SLJ's October 2022 cover. Illustration by Stephen Gilpin.

Page samples from left: (1) Bunnicula: The Graphic Novel by James Howe, adapted by Andrew Donkin/illus. by Stephen Gilpin; (2) Prunella and the Cursed Skull Ring by Matthew Loux; (3) Scare School (Just Beyond series) by R.L. Stine, illus. by various; (4) Welcome to Feral by Mark Fearing; (5) Have You Seen the Darkness (Black Sand Beach series) by Richard Fairgray. 

13 Creepy Creations

“The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids” Adapted by Pearl Low. Graphix. 2022.
Gr 1-3 –These books are adapted from the original chapter book series, and they are broken into short chapters. The art and storytelling are straightforward, retaining the charm of the originals.

Prunella and the Cursed Skull Ring by Matthew Loux. First Second. Oct. 2022.
Gr 2-5 –Prunella lives in a village surrounded by a high wall, all the better to keep out the monsters. When a cursed ring transforms her into a skeleton monster, even her own mother doesn’t recognize her, and her fellow villagers banish her to the wilderness beyond the wall. The monsters that Prunella encounters there may look scary, but they are unfailingly friendly and helpful, and in the end, Prunella decides she prefers them to the villagers.

The Ghoul Next Door by Cullen Bunn, illus. by Cat Farris. HarperAlley. Jul. 2021.
Gr 3-7 –Eleven-year-old Grey makes friends with a ghoul named Lavinia, one of a race of creatures who live beneath the local graveyard and feed on dead bodies. Their friendship breaks the ghouls’ most important taboo, though, and the book builds to an action-packed climax when Grey descends into the world of the ghouls, and Lavinia must choose who to side with. A sequel, Up to No Ghoul, published in August 2022.

Bunnicula: The Graphic Novel by James Howe, adapted by Andrew Donkin; illus. by Stephen Gilpin. Atheneum. Aug. 2022.
Gr 3-7 –This graphic adaptation stays close to the original story about a dog and a cat who go to great lengths to determine if the bunny who has recently joined their ranks is a vampire. The cartoony style fits well with the goofy story, and Gilpin does a nice job of using colors to convey the mood of a given scene.

Welcome to Feral by Mark Fearing. Holiday House. Nov. 2022.
Gr 3-7 –Strange things are happening in the small town of Feral: Kids disappear down a haunted slide; an ice cream truck appears in the middle of the woods and serves up monsters instead of frozen treats. Freya, the narrator, presents the stories as part of her research into what is going on. This is one book where not all the kids return to reality, but Fearing promises their stories will be resolved in the second volume. Exaggerated, cartoony artwork tones down the visual fear factor.

Spirit Week by Ira Marcks. Little, Brown, Oct. 2022.
Gr 3-7 –This work is inspired by The Shining, but with carefully selected story elements. Two tweens, Elijah and Suzy, head to an aging Colorado hotel, Elijah to make a film about reclusive author Jack Axworth and Suzy to tutor his son. They join forces when they realize that Axworth wants to destroy the hotel. Marcks cleverly weaves a story with bits of the movie, the local legend of the Colorado vampire, and two smart kids.

Stranger Things Omnibus: Afterschool Adventures by Greg Pak and Danny Lore, illus. by Valeria Favoccia. Dark Horse. Oct. 2022.
Gr 3-7 –This omnibus collects three graphic novels, all set in the world of Netflix’s Stranger Things, but you don’t have to know the show to enjoy it. In the first one, a group of children deal with trauma by making a movie about zombies, and some difficult truths emerge; in the second, a boy wants to exact revenge on the telekinetic teen who humiliated him at school; and in the third, a 10-year-old girl learns to adjust to the new realities in her life. All have scary monsters, tense moments, and an underlying theme about dealing with the darkness.

House of Fear: Attack of the Killer Snowmen and Other Stories by James Powell et. al. Dark Horse. 2019.
Gr 3-7 –The five stories in this book are straightforward horror tales with the look and feel (if not the gore) of the classic EC comics, complete with a Crypt Keeper-like host. Kids take center stage in each, though. In the title story, a group of kids are attacked by snow monsters but fight them off with squirt guns loaded with hot chocolate. Other kids encounter a swamp monster, disappear into a pile of leaves, and dodge an ax-wielding ghost with a deep hatred of trees. This is straight-up comic-book horror delivered in short chapters. It’s easy to dip into—or set aside if it gets too scary.

“Black Sand Beach” by Richard Fairgray. Holiday House/Pixel + Ink. 2020-22.
Gr 3-7 –Fairgray mixes humor and horror in this three-volume series. Dash and his friend Lily are spending the summer in a remote beach house with Dash’s family, including two cousins who seem pretty normal and some adults who don’t. Fairgray nests stories within stories, weaving together a mysterious lighthouse whose beam makes ghosts visible, monsters being raised as farm animals, and the overarching puzzle of why Dash can’t remember being at the island the previous summer, although his journal says he was. Fairgray’s cartoony art and Dash’s eccentric family keep the mood light, despite the island’s creepy inhabitants, and there’s a bit of touching family drama mixed in, too.

The Grimm’s Town Terror Tales: Rise of the Candy Creeper by Neo Edmund, illus. by Renae de Liz. Storm Kids. Feb. 2021.
Gr 4-6 –Twins Hansel and Gretel return home from a camping trip to find their parents missing and lots of weird stuff happening in their home. It turns out that their parents are monster hunters who have been secretly keeping the local cryptofauna at bay, and now it’s up to the kids to face down the monsters and rescue their parents. The candy-colored palette and stream of wisecracks from the bickering siblings help keep this action-filled story from getting too intense.

“Just Beyond” by R.L. Stine, illus. by various. KaBOOM! 2019–2022.
Gr 4-7 –Each volume of this series is a stand-alone graphic novel with a story in the “Goosebumps” vein: Students escape from a school in a parallel world; real monsters menace an old movie set; Martians take over the bodies of two children on a family camping trip. Disney+ created a show based on this series.

“The Nightmare Brigade” by Franck Thilliez, illus. by Yomgui Dumont. Papercutz. 2022.
Gr 5 Up –Tristan and Esteban live together as brothers, although Esteban was found in the woods three years earlier and has no
memory of his previous life. Tristan’s father, Professor Angus, runs a sleep clinic, and under his supervision, the two 14-year-olds enter the dreams of others to look for the underlying causes of their nightmares. In addition to their adventures in the dreams of others, Tristan and Esteban are trying to rescue Tristan’s mother, who is trapped in another person’s nightmare, and Esteban is searching for his origins. The dream worlds have a spooky, surrealistic atmosphere, and the horrors connect to the dreamer’s anxieties. Papercutz has published two volumes, with a third due out in June 2023.

Goosebumps: Creepy Crawly Comics by Jen Vaughn et. al., illus. by various. IDW. Nov. 2020.
Gr 4-7 –This volume collects three previously published Goosebumps graphic novels, all original stories: A wealthy witch buys a haunted house and hypnotizes a whole town; two children find terror in a used bookstore; a smartphone app takes over the user’s life. The newest graphic novel in IDW’s series is Goosebumps: Secrets of the Swamp, by Marieke Nijkamp and illustrated by Yasmin Florez Montanez, published in 2021.