How to choose a spooky book for a child

Match the fear level to the reader before anything else, then check whether the book is telling a story or reporting history. The two are shelved together and read very differently.

Start from the child, not the cover

Publishers print an age band or reading level on the back or in the product details, and it is a better guide than the artwork. A cartoon ghost on the cover can sit on a chapter book aimed at eleven-year-olds, and a plain cover can sit on a picture book for five-year-olds.

Reading age and tolerance for fear are separate. A confident reader may still be unsettled by a book written for their reading level, so it is worth checking what the story actually does rather than only how hard the words are.

Check whether the book is fiction

Books about ghosts fall into two families that look alike on a shelf. One tells an invented story; the other reports folklore, local legend or documented history such as the Salem trials, and is often written for school use.

The publisher's subject line distinguishes them, and so does the presence of a contents page, a glossary or an index. A child who wants a scary story will be disappointed by a reference book, and a child researching a school project will be stuck with a novel.

Read the opening before you buy

A sample page shows more than any description. Look at whether frightening events happen on the page or are reported afterwards, and whether the book resolves them — most writing for younger readers does, and books for teenagers often do not.

Illustrations set the tone as much as the text. Photographs of real places read very differently from drawings, and a book of local hauntings can unsettle a child more than an invented monster because the setting is somewhere they can visit.

Before you choose an edition

• The publisher's age band or reading level matches the child.
• I know whether this is a story or a book of folklore and history.
• I have read the opening pages and judged how frightening they are.
• The illustrations suit the reader as well as the text does.