Halloween is undoubtedly my favorite holiday. I love the costumes and the candy. But I suspect the reason I most love Halloween is the scary stories.
I love scary stories and always have. My parents—not big fans of spooky stories—had good reason to keep them away from me: as a child I was extremely susceptible to nightmares. But I snuck these stories anyway, reading them in our basement, or tucking books beneath my mattress where they wouldn’t be found. My love of ghost stories has always been a tale of forbidden fruit: what I secretly consume when no one else is watching. Now I'm surprised to find myself worrying about whether some stories are too scary for the young readers in my life.
I remember quite fondly some classic middle-grade titles for Halloween such as Eleanor Estes’s mid-century Halloween classic The Witch Family, about two girls who love to draw witches, but banish their drawn witch to a drawn house with a family in order to try to make her good—mischief ensues. As a young reader, I thought E. L.
Konigsburg’s title, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth,
was about witchcraft. It was only rereading it as an adult that I picked up on the fact that the book is about 
Nevertheless, I find I want something mysterious at this time of year, not just another mystery with a Scooby-Doo ending. What is your guideline for scary books? When do you know a kid is ready, or feel that a book is better left behind in the bookstore? I ask because I'm starting to feel like an irresponsible adult for recommending some of my favorite titles, including John Bellairs’s juvenile horror series beginning with The Curse of the Blue Figurine or the perennial campfire classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by 
