local_shipping Free Standard Shipping on all orders $25+ and use Coupon Code BackToSchool for an additional 20% off!
Do you know any scary stories?
It's Halloween and Alex is excited to be watching horror movies and telling ghost stories with his cousins. When it's Alex's turn to share, he tells the terrifying tale of Jack Hatchett, local hardware store owner and serial killer. Legend has it that he cut his victims up and hid the pieces so they would never be found. But before the police could prove anything, the hardware store burned to the ground, turning the suspected murderer and his secrets to ashes. Now, if you dial the number for Hatchett's Hardware, his ghost is said to answer the phone. For Alex, Chloe and Luke, the temptation to call and see if the legend is true proves too hard to resist...
In this series of standalone, spine-tingling horror stories, young readers experience different literary devices common to horror novels. Each book is written by a different author and run the gamut of tropes from ghost stories to possessed animals to evil mannequins. This collection offers a variety of stories that would appeal to a range of horror readers, so one thing to note is the consistency in writing style and scare level fluctuates quite dramatically due to the different authors. For example, What's in the Walls? is a simpler school story akin to "Bailey School Kids" series when compared to the intense ghost story in Dial If You Dare. The books are on the short side and would make excellent read-alouds in group settings. VERDICT A nice supplement to libraries with an active "Goosebumps" collection.
Copyright 2025 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Alexandre Côté-Fournier studied creative writing and cinema and now teaches French literature. He wrote his first horror stories when he was a teenager and hasn't stopped since. He lives in Quebec.
Geneviève Bigué is an illustrator and comic artist who works in many fields, including publishing and advertising. What's in the Walls? was her first book for young readers as an illustrator. Her first graphic novel as an author, Parfois les lacs brûlent (When the Lake Burns), won many awards, including the 2023 Prix des libraires du Québec, and was nominated for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards in Young People's Literature. She lives in Montréal.
David Warriner grew up in the UK and escaped to Quebec right after graduating from Oxford. A professional translator for nearly two decades, David nurtures a healthy passion for Quebec fiction and has translated a range of fiction, nonfiction and children's fiction titles by Quebec authors for British and Canadian publishers. He lives in Penticton, British Columbia.