Best Halloween Books and Activities that Won’t Scare Your Kid

It’s time to dig out the Halloween decorations and start thinking of creative costumes! There are so many great Halloween books that won’t scare kids out there to explore. Every year I am discovering new and exciting stories and activities for kids that inspire creativity and really bring to life the spirit of Halloween and the autumn season.

For kids, Halloween doesn’t have to be a scary experience, and my top 10 Halloween books are focused on the light-hearted, non-scary side of Halloween. These Halloween book won’t scare kids but instead you can enjoy the stories as well as creative and fun activities that you can do together. Enjoy exploring some of my favourite books along with suggested Halloween activities for each one! 

Best Halloween Books and Activities that Won’t Scare Kids Under 7 

1. Room on the Broom

Children love the rhythm and repetition in this popular picture book by Julia Donaldson. The story of a witch and her animal friends explores the concepts of friendship and cooperation while lightly focusing on Halloween type themes. Best for ages 2 – 4.

Activity: Go on a treasure hunt in your house for the witch’s lost items. If you don’t have the real thing, then make them out of paper or materials. Focus on sequencing and putting them in order of when they were lost in the story.

2. Pete the Cat: Trick or Pete

These popular picture books by James Dean are focused on Pete the Cat and his neighbourhood friends. In this book, Pete goes trick-or-treating from house to house and discovers what is waiting behind each door. If your child enjoys this story, there is a large series of Pete the Cat books to explore. Best for ages 2 – 4. 

Activity: Watch the video for the song “Knock, knock, trick-or-treat” and learn the words. Focus on the order of costumes which appear in the song. Using these Halloween Matching Cards featuring the 6 different costumes, focus on sequencing the order of the costumes in the song and then matching the words with the pictures, based on the initial sounds of the words.

3. The Rollaway Pumpkin

This is a Halloween book that won’t scare kids! This cute story written by Junia Wonders is an adventure story following Marla Little and her pumpkin which is rolling away. Can she catch it before it’s gone forever? This charming story teaches the joy of helping one another and sharing. The text is short and simple, written for early and beginner readers. The use of repetitive language and highlighted keywords throughout the book makes the text appealing to very young children. The format of the story is great for practising sequencing skills. Best for ages 4 – 7. 

Activity: This book is the perfect way to explore the physics of motion while practising gross motor play. I love this STEM pumpkin rolling experiment which is simple and easy to set-up. Using a ramp and small pumpkins, children can explore force, motion and gravity. 

4. Froggy’s Halloween

Jonathan London has created a series of more than twenty “Froggy” books, so if your children enjoy this story, there are more to explore. Froggy tries to find the perfect costume for trick-or-treating but it doesn’t go as planned. This is great for young children as there are plenty of great pictures. Best for ages 2 – 4. 

Activity: Focus on fine motor skills. Discuss different Halloween masks that can be worn as part of a costume. Either print or sketch out the shape of their chosen mask for your child to colour and cut out.

5. Funnybones

Read the book Funnybones with your child. It tells the story of three skeletons — an adult, a child and a dog. Young children love this book because there is repetition and it explores Halloween themes in a non-threatening way. Best for ages 2 – 4. 

Activity: This book introduces the concept of skeletons being the structure of our body. After reading the book together, look at images of x-rays online and explore what real skeletons look like. Create your own skeleton using cotton buds as the ‘bones’. Use black coloured paper for the background, cut cotton buds in half for the feet and fingers, and glue everything down to make simple skeleton pictures. Cut out a skull from white paper and your funny bones skeleton is complete!

6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s Creepy-Crawly Halloween 

Little fans of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar are going to love this edition as the little caterpillar goes on an adventure exploring the woods by the light of the moon. This is a beautifully illustrated rhyming story with flaps to lift on every page to discover creatures hiding in the forest and the nighttime theme makes it perfect as a non-scary bedtime story. The images are colourful and not scary. The text is perfect for young readers learning to read independently and each page prompts children to find the creatures hiding behind the flaps. Best for ages 2 – 4. 

Activity: This book is perfect for practising sequencing and memory skills! Each flap hides a surprise. After reading the book once, go back to each flap and see if your children can remember what is hiding underneath. If they can’t, try to give hints and allow them to guess. Write each one down with a simple picture to accompany the word. Can they put the pictures in order of how they appeared in the book? 

7. Peppa Pig: Peppa’s Spooky Halloween

There are a large collection of Peppa books to explore but this is my choice for Halloween. The book focuses on Peppa and George getting ready for Halloween at Grandpa and Granny Pig’s house. Together they try on some spooky costumes, decorate their haunted house in spooky decorations and bake some spooky Halloween treats. Everything’s ready just in time for their Spooky Show! Best for ages 2 – 4. 

Activity: Make one of the tasty Halloween treats featured in the book or bake pumpkin treats such as pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie. Cooking is a great way to practice measurement and follow instructions.

8. Little People: Trick or Treat!

This Little People book by Fisher Price celebrates Halloween and all its fun traditions. Children will enjoy the story, which is packed with fun flaps to open. 
The Little People friends can’t wait to celebrate Halloween and the story follows them as they choose costumes to wear, carve funny jack-o’-lanterns, and trick-or-treat through town. Best for ages 2 – 4.

Activity: Beginner readers will find quite a few tricky words to practise in this book. After reading the story once, make flashcards of the tricky words your child needs to practise. Fold them up and put them in a Halloween bucket. Choose one or two words each day from the bucket and practise reading and putting them into a sentence. Find the word in the book and then try to read the sentence with the word!  

9. The Night Before Halloween 

Natasha Wing is famous for her “Night Before…” stories which all have the same rhythm as “The night Before Christmas” and focus on different holidays and celebrations. The Night Before Halloween follows a group of neighbourhood monsters as they prepare for Halloween. It also follows a group of children as they get ready to enjoy the festivities by decorating their own haunted house. As it turns out, the anticipation and celebration of Halloween looks much the same for both parties. The story is cute and the characters, even the “scary” ones, are very likeable. The clear rhyming pattern and colourful images bring the story to life. Best for ages 4 – 7. 

Activity: This story has a very clear rhyming pattern that children will enjoy listening to. After reading the story, play a rhyming memory game using these printable word cards. Cut out the cards and match together rhyming words. Then mix up the cards and place them face down on a table. Turn over two cards searching for matching pairs. Take turns until all rhyming pairs are found. 

10. The Great Pumpkin Contest

This book is a story about pumpkins, Halloween and cats, with a theme of friendship being more important than a competition. Mimi and Clara are cat neighbours who both want to win the Great Pumpkin Contest. As the competition draws near, Mimi’s pumpkin grows larger and larger. Soon, the pumpkin, and her worries, are bigger than she imagined. Can Clara help Mimi find her way with kindness and teamwork? The illustrations are brightly coloured and the cats’ expressive faces show a wide range of emotions, including amazement, suspicion, and anger. This makes a lovely bedtime story, when you can explore and discuss different emotions and how the cats are feeling at each stage of the story. Best for ages 4 – 7. 

Activity: There are so many themes to explore in this story. The facial expressions of the cats and the variety of emotions experienced throughout the story are a good springboard to talk about emotions with your child. Can they identify how the cats are feeling throughout the story? How many different emotions can they name? Play the Emoticon Matching Game to explore facial expressions and their matching emotions. 

Halloween Books that Won’t Scare Kids

Remember – Halloween doesn’t have to be focused on scary themes. Younger children will love the idea of dressing up, carving jack-o-lanterns, making Halloween themed food and collecting sweets (of course!) so make this your focus and enjoy the day together without any scariness involved. These Halloween books that won’t scare kids are a great starting point for building up excitement and anticipation for October 31st!