Grave News – 10 October 2025

With thanks to the spider awaiting me last night, hanging upside down an inch above my pillow, not to mention the poltergeist which has set up noisy residence in my washing machine, I feel ready to declare that spooky season is upon us. Thus, in ascending order of age appropriateness and/or tolerance for the uncanny, the unsettling and the downright horrifying, some grotesque recommendations for you and your coven…

Two interactive board books for minuscule monsters:

Five Little Ghosts by Alex Barrow introduces a family of rather sweet and behatted ghouls trying to cause a scare, though mostly just worrying their mother, while Feed your Monster by Anna Milbourne, illustrated by Anna Sußbauer features a very hungry chap with a diverse palate.

For the picture book devotees:

In Spider Queen’s Halloween by Russell Punter and David Semple, nothing can go wrong at the Queen’s Halloween party. Certainly, she must not fall into the apple bobbing barrel, slide on any slime or be hit by a stray pumpkin.

If you think buying a new car is stressful, imagine what it’s like when your broomstick breaks down. In Tilly’s New Broom by Mary Anastasiou and Giorgia Clerico, Tilly the witch is having a very difficult time getting to Dark Art class and the salesmen offering her a skateboard or a vacuum instead are unconvincing. Can anything replace her favourite broom?

Not for the (sartorially) faint-hearted Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown sees Jasper Rabbit insist that his mother buy him some excellent bright green underwear only to discover that it glows in the dark. But not in the comforting way that a night light does…

For those who claim to be too mature for night lights:

In Murray the Ghosthunter by Adam Stower, Murray and Bun (the former a lazy cat, the latter once a bun of the sticky variety but, thanks to Fumblethumb the wizard, now a bunny, if still rather sticky – just go with it, we don’t have time) stumble through their enchanted cat flap to a haunted house. At least, it was haunted. Lady Daphne and her skeleton husband Geoffrey were cleaning the suit of armour when they accidentally released the ghost which inhabited it. Now the house has lost its spooky charm.

Murray is enlisted to find the ghost. Unfortunately, his talent lies more in locating handkerchiefs, blancmanges and a woman who has fallen in some candyfloss.

And, for the bravest young bookworms/maggots:

Mallory Vayle and Maggoty Skull are back for another adventure involving scythes, necromancy and wigs (truly, this is the vainest skull since Jeremy Bentham’s*) in The Beast from Beneath by Martin Howard, illustrated by Pete Williamson. Fans of the Addams Family and… Robin Hood: Men in Tights… and… Louis XIV, I guess?… this one’s for you.

Meanwhile inThe Strange Disappearance of Imogen Good by Kirsty Applebaum, Fran is dreading six days staying with her aunt, uncle and awful cousin Imogen. Yet even worse is arriving to find that her cousin is missing and her aunt and uncle have no memory of ever having a daughter. Their home is in the grounds of Stillness Hall, an ancient estate with a hidden garden whose statues have some stories to tell, but children are not allowed in…

For young readers seeking cold hard facts:

The Unexplained: Ghosts by Adam Allsuch Boardman is a graphic history of different beliefs about ghosts across the world, a collection of famous hauntings of everything from whole towns to cars to dolls and a helpful guide to what may be lurking under your bed.

If the children are occupied with such delights, presumably you are doing a really good job. But, just in case, you may need a copy of Goth Parenting: The Dark Joys of Raising Baby Bats by Casey Gilly, illustrated by Robin Robinson. Goth parents, autumn is your time. May your black hearts swell with joy as your baby bats grow, even as they reject you by wearing pastels and listening to Britney rather than Bauhaus.

Anyone off for a nice jaunt around a cemetery may wish to take Mariana Enriquez’s Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave (not to mention a crucifix and some garlic). It should come as no surprise if you have read her haunting short stories that Enriquez likes hanging out in graveyards. Indeed, that she is a connoisseur. Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave takes the reader across the world, almost into the underworld, through some very lively visits to cemeteries, mausoleums and catacombs as well as discussions of the political and religious history of burials.

Whether you will be settling down with a horror film as the evenings draw in or wondering why anyone dares anything more alarming than Paddington, Feeding the Monster: Why horror has a hold on us by Anna Bogutskaya is an interesting analysis of the genre and discussion of the comfort which horror can bring. Still, no judgement from me if you think Paddington 2 gets a little scary for your liking.

Fiction fiends, I can’t decide which is more terrifying, a school where the rules are unspoken and no one may question what’s happening to the children or, simply, other people…

Four by Four by Sara Mesa, translated by Katie Whittemore is a very clever and absolutely horrible book set in a boarding school which seems a haven for its pupils, away from a poor, violent and crumbling society outside. It is not. I could not look away. The writing is brilliant. But, seriously, horrifying.

And yet I turned straight from reading Four by Four to Other People by Celia Dale, a quiet shudder of a book, set in 1960s Bristol. June is doing well at school, helping her mother in their corner shop and dreaming of becoming an actress when the news comes that the father she has never known is to return from Australia. Everything about their life must change; June’s alarm and resentment quickly turn to hatred.

Finally, your blood-ridden poetry hit comes from a collection of vampiric verses edited by Claire Kohda (author of Woman, Eating, my favourite vampire novel in which a woman who isn’t sure how to be a vampire watches lots of Buffy) in the form of White Teeth, Red Blood.

Or, if spells, potions, exorcisms and Patrick Swayze are more your thing, then I recommend Midden Witch by Fiona Benson.

We offer relief and antidotes to the above in various forms: confirmation that Cheese, which I wrote about last week is pure and fatty genius, a poetry reading with Esme Allman on Saturday 18 October from her collection Sweet Bone Girl, a discussion of the healing power of animals on 4 November with Jay Griffiths and Gareth Howell-Jones and Katie Daynes’ very sweet board book, Why Am I Afraid? a question we all ask ourselves and one helpfully answered by a trembling frog and a poised heron.