I’m a children’s book author and regularly read 2-3 middle grade books a week. I love books that respect kids enough to make them think, and I seek out good books constantly, whether they are intended for kids, youth, or adults. I’m the author of the early education books It’s OK Not to Share andIt’s OK to Go Up the Slide, and the ghost adventure The Griffins of Castle Caryfor kids ages 8-12. I’m a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and besides writing, I host two podcasts: BookSmitten (children’s books), and Renegade Rules (early childhood). Enjoy the books!
I love all books by Ruth M. Arthur, and this one is particularly special. It starts with three sisters and an evil doll named Dido. I love multi-generational stories, and this one starts in the late 1800s and ends up in a post-WW II orphanage. I have read this book about seven times and never tire of its compelling power. Arthur weaves the supernatural into real life and loss, exploring how trauma can persist and damage generations, while giving young readers a gripping read.
As a twelve-year-old, I read nothing but ghost books—not monsters, horror, or mystery, but ghosts. Though I debuted as an author in teen fantasy, a middle grade editor discovered my talent for spooky atmospheres, and I was once again drawn into the world of lost souls. In fact, when I was working on my first spooky novel, The Haunting, my editor requested the book to remind him of the works of Mary Downing Hahn—one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d found my calling. It just happened to be from beyond the grave…
Imagine finding a beautiful dollhouse where its occupants reenact the night of a murder from decades ago…creepy, right? Betty Ren Wright’s The Dollhouse Murders is a unique ghost story where the ghosts communicate their tragic tale through miniature doll versions of themselves.
Its mystery and old family secrets make this book one of my all-time favorites.
Dolls can't move by themselves. . . . Or can they?
This special anniversary edition of the hair-raising mystery that's kept readers up at night for thirty-five years features a foreword by Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine.
Amy is terrified. She hears scratching and scurrying noises coming from the dollhouse in the attic, and the dolls she was playing with are not where she left them. Dolls can't move by themselves, she tells herself. But every night when Amy goes up to check on the dollhouse, it's filled with an eerie light and the dolls have moved again! Are the dolls…
I’ve been obsessed with murder mysteries and psychological thrillers for as long as I can remember. My father’s bookshelves were full of anthologies on serial killers, which piqued my curiosity at a very early age (probably too early, but we’re not here to judge my dad’s parenting skills, okay?). As I familiarized myself with the likes of Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and John Wayne Gacy, I became enthralled by the psychology behind what makes people commit heinous acts. Now as an author myself, these same stories fuel my inspiration and keep me motivated to write books that further explore the darker side of human nature.
I loved this book from beginning to end and was completely absorbed by the author’s incredible world-building and rich descriptions.
While the book is a murder mystery, the author’s poetic writing style made this story strangely beautiful in the most horrific way. I devoured the book in no time at all, breathlessly turning pages to get to the end, which was both shocking and extremely satisfying. Packed with suspense, thrills, and a little bit of romance, this book did not disappoint me in the least.
No one is safe. Not when the Dollmaker lurks in the shadows.
When Dawn Hildegard's best friend Rose is kidnapped by "The Dollmaker," a crazed serial killer who creates "art" from women's bodies, she drops everything to find her-including her dream of becoming a doctor. With the help of a handsome new acquaintance and his mysterious brother, they set off to find the killer. Although they quickly become friends, Dawn cannot shake the uneasy feeling that the brothers know more about the murders than they admit.
As more and more victims are found murdered and displayed throughout town, Dawn must…
I’ve been terrified, fascinated, and delighted by scary stories my whole life, and my very favorites dabble in the speculative and supernatural: ghosts, monsters, magic, and worlds beyond our own. Give me all your haunted houses, your warped realities, your inexplicable horrors intruding on the everyday world. These fantastical elements are fraught with the power of nightmares and fairy tales, and that makes them the best tools we have to get around our news-hardened, cynical safeguards and explore what truly frightens us.
This book features an isolated old schoolhouse that has been converted to a family home, where the ghost of one of its residents still lingers, along with her old collection of little porcelain dolls. The seaside landscape drips with atmosphere, and that army of tiny, malevolent porcelain figurines is one of the weirdest and scariest variations on the “creepy doll” trope I’ve ever encountered.
A Zoella Book Club Autumn 2016 title
"So creepy and amazing [...] I loved it [...] You'll never look at small china dolls in the same way ever again." - Zoella
"Deliciously creepy." - Juno Dawson
Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...
Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lillias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be…
It took me a long time to realize that the books I write have always (always) been about trauma. (I write fantasy, so the link wasn’t immediately apparent to me.) But now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. Likewise, it took me a long time to notice that all my favorite magical books were the ones that seemed to be trying to find a new language for the terrible things that can happen to and around us. Magic provides a powerful language for psychological pain. It can make it more real. It can make it more digestible. It can help us to see it more clearly. Fiction tells lies that make reality bearable and understandable—and magical fiction is no different. Which is why it will probably always be my favorite kind.
The Dollmaker of Kraków is about a doll named Karolina who finds herself in the human world after her homeland—the Land of the Dolls—is ravaged by an army of rats. To be more specific, she finds herself in a dollmaker’s shop. In Kraków. In 1939. World War II has just begun, and Karolina watches as the horrors of the Holocaust unfold before her eyes. Glistening with folklore and fairy tales, this historical fantasy shines with hope and beauty. It never fails to remind me how art can save us, over and over, even—or especially—in the darkest of times.
A timeless fantasy set in the Second World War that weaves together magic, folklore and history, perfect for fans of The Book Thief, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Goodnight Mister Tom.
One night a little doll named Karolina comes to life in a toyshop in Krakow, Poland, in 1939 and changes the life of the gruff, broken-hearted Dollmaker. And when the darkness of the Nazi occupation sweeps over the city, Karolina and the Dollmaker must bravely use their magic to save their Jewish friends from a terrible danger, no matter what the risks. This powerful story is about…
I’ve always loved dollhouses, from the one my mom built for me when I was ten, to the ones I refinished and decorated as an adult with my own kids. There’s something magical and mysterious about miniature rooms, tiny furnishings, and dolls who may have secret lives unknown to us. My first novel, Time Windows, features a dollhouse found in an attic that allows Miranda to see through its windows into different times in her real house’s past. In my second dollhouse novel, Sweet Miss Honeywell’s Revenge, Zibby’s antique dollhouse turns out to be teeming with ghosts. I am intrigued by other authors’ novels of dollhouses, and I hope you will enjoy those on this list as well as my own two creepy tales.
The Dollhouse family in this novel comes to life every Christmas. This year feels different because the three boys in their human family are growing up and don’t seem interested in playing with them. Worse still, the Dollhouse family learns that burglars are planning to break into the house and steal the valuables—and possibly the dollhouse itself. How can they warn the human family when the humans don’t even believe they are real? They make plan after desperate plan, and as each plan fails, they must come up with a solution before it is too late.
This story made me chuckle even as the plot thickens and the danger intensifies. I love the blend of fantasy and invention, and the satisfying ending.
Hola, I’m Yawatta Hosby, and I have an open mind about monsters, ghosts, and urban legends. I believe they’re real, especially the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. Earth is too big to only have humans. I have a passion for the topic being terrorized by things that go bump in the night. My book, Urban Legends, plays into that theme. October, the spooky season, is my favorite. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Every year, I watch a horror movie every day for 31 days straight. I also love reading horror books and researching urban legends. I’d like to think I’m an expert in horror, but it could all be in my head haha.
I loved this short story. The main character picks up an antique doll during one of his travels for his daughter. The doll’s name was Alice, and she was very creepy. I could imagine every feet patter and slam against the door with the author’s great way of describing details in the setting. The doll was on a mission and nothing was going to stand in her way. I enjoyed the twist regarding the bed and breakfast owner.
Out near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey sits the Whateley Bed & Breakfast, home of a wide collection of knick-knacks and antiques for its guests to view, including a beautifully ornate porcelain doll. However, after the Whateley's latest guest purchases the doll as a gift, a horrifying series of nightmarish events begins to unfold.
Porcelain is a 8000 word novelette.
Porcelain can also be found in the collection of stories: Counterphobia A Collection of Horror.
I’ve always loved dollhouses, from the one my mom built for me when I was ten, to the ones I refinished and decorated as an adult with my own kids. There’s something magical and mysterious about miniature rooms, tiny furnishings, and dolls who may have secret lives unknown to us. My first novel, Time Windows, features a dollhouse found in an attic that allows Miranda to see through its windows into different times in her real house’s past. In my second dollhouse novel, Sweet Miss Honeywell’s Revenge, Zibby’s antique dollhouse turns out to be teeming with ghosts. I am intrigued by other authors’ novels of dollhouses, and I hope you will enjoy those on this list as well as my own two creepy tales.
Alice and her mom move to a huge manor house where Alice's mom will take care of a rich old lady. Then Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that's an exact replica of the house she's living in. (What is it about dollhouses hidden away in attics?) But the tale moves in a very different direction when Alice wakes up one morning to find a strange girl asleep next to her in her bed—a girl who looks just like a doll from the dollhouse. Where has she come from? What is her connection to the dollhouse, and to the unpleasant woman who owns it?
I love the way this novel merges mystery and ghost story. I was immediately hooked.
A creepy, mysterious dollhouse takes center stage in this atmospheric middle-grade mystery for fans of Doll Bones and Small Spaces.
Alice's world is falling apart. Her parents are getting a divorce, and they've cancelled their yearly cottage trip -- the one thing that gets Alice through the school year. Instead, Alice and her mom are heading to some small town where Alice's mom will be a live-in nurse to a rich elderly lady.
The house is huge, imposing and spooky, and everything inside is meticulously kept and perfect -- not a fun place to spend the summer. Things start to…
I'm
Mitch Cullin, or so I've been told. Besides being the ethical nemesis of the
late Jon Lellenberg and his corrupt licensing/copyright trolls at the Conan
Doyle Estate Ltd., I'm also a documentary photographer, very occasional author
of books, and full-time wrangler of feral cats.
The
black-and-white images of Ralph Eugene Meatyard have long fascinated me and
informed my visual work and writing. Meatyard was, by profession, an optician
in Lexington, Kentucky, yet his personal passion was making photographs. His
subjects were his wife, children, and family friends, who he often posed in
murky settings as they wore masks and held dolls. These images are both
disquieting and euphonious, tapping into something primal that hints at the
secretive world of childhood.
Family man, optician, avid reader and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard created and explored a fantasy world of dolls and masks, in which his family and friends played the central roles on an ever-changing stage. His monograph, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, published posthumously in 1974, recorded his wife and family posed in various disquieting settings, wearing masks and holding dolls and evoking a penetrating emotional and psychological landscape. The book won his work critical acclaim and has been hugely influential in the intervening decades. Dolls and Masks opens the doors on the decade of rich experimentation that immediately preceded…
I’ve always loved dollhouses, from the one my mom built for me when I was ten, to the ones I refinished and decorated as an adult with my own kids. There’s something magical and mysterious about miniature rooms, tiny furnishings, and dolls who may have secret lives unknown to us. My first novel, Time Windows, features a dollhouse found in an attic that allows Miranda to see through its windows into different times in her real house’s past. In my second dollhouse novel, Sweet Miss Honeywell’s Revenge, Zibby’s antique dollhouse turns out to be teeming with ghosts. I am intrigued by other authors’ novels of dollhouses, and I hope you will enjoy those on this list as well as my own two creepy tales.
A little wooden doll named Tottie is excited when an antique dollhouse is given to the children in her human family. But while the dollhouse itself is lovely, a dreadful doll named Marchpane comes with it. She is a horror—and completely disrupts the harmonious life of the doll family. What to do? How can she be gotten rid of?
This is a tale with a race against time, and an effort to restore balance to a damaged world. I especially love that the story is told from the doll’s point of view. Tottie is a sweet little thing, always worrying about others, but very determined to set things to rights before Marchpane ruins everything forever.
From Rumer Godden, one of the foremost authors of the 20th century, and illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Tasha Tudor, comes a heartwarming tale filled with imagination and creativity that is ideal for any girl who has ever loved a doll so much that it has become real to her.
For Tottie Plantaganet, a little wooden doll, belonging to Emily and Charlotte Dane is wonderful. The only thing missing is a dollhouse that Tottie and her family could call their very own. But when the dollhouse finally does arrive, Tottie's problems really begin. That dreadful doll Marchpane comes to…
