Spooky season—like all the holidays—seems to get pushed earlier and earlier every year, but I’ll always wait until October. (Okay, so partly that’s because I can never get organized ahead of time, but even so…) Now that it’s officially October, here’s a couple of books with some chills and thrills to get you in the spirit.
Disclosure: I received review copies of these books except where noted. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers!
Cackle Crackle: Letters from the Witch written by Annie Atkins, illustrated by Taryn Knight
Okay, I generally don’t cover picture books anymore because my kids are older and we’re past the stage where we used to sit and read stacks of picture books to them. When they arrive (I think publishers will never stop sending them to me), sometimes I’ll flip through them but primarily they’ll just go in the box to give away to parents with younger kids or the elementary school library. This one happened to show up when I was making my stack of Halloween books, so I’m making an exception.
The story depicts various kids daring to approach the homes of witches, wizards, and druids, seeking help for a stuck kite, a lost teddy, a sick little brother. Each of the witches is busy writing a letter to the next one in line—because it’s time for the annual Big Witch Convention—but they take the time to do a little spell to help the kids. In the letters, though, it’s revealed that all of the problems actually had non-magical remedies. At the end, though, the witch convention finally happens and they get to do their real magic.
The letters themselves are a treat: each one has a full page-sized envelope with stamps, address, and postmarks, from which you can remove a little letter to the next witch, as well as a page from a spellbook about the particular problem the kids had. It’s a gorgeous book, though you’ll want to be careful not to lose the letters or get them mixed up!
The Wump by Tony DiTerlizzi
This story is a bit of Jekyll and Hyde tale: Timothy is a bit of a nerd, but he’s having a rough time in middle school. His mom doesn’t really understand him at all, and his science teacher has paired him up with the school bully for their project. Even his relationship with Alberto, his best friend since third grade, has hit a rough patch. His grandparents give him very different advice: Grandma says he needs to learn empathy, but Grandpa says Tim should just “wump ’em right in the honker.” Tim has noticed some strange things about his shadow lately—it has been turning into a big monster and moving around on its own. When Tim lets it take over, he finds he’s able to speak his mind, to stand up to the bullies, and he starts to enjoy having the “Wump” on his side.
There were some parts of the book that were a little predictable—like the fact that Tim would enjoy feeling powerful and then go a bit too far, or that he and the school bully would actually find out that they have some things in common. Grandma’s lesson about empathy turns out to be correct, though first you get to see the mess that the Wump makes. And, to be sure, it is kinda fun: the schadenfreude of seeing the people who tormented Tim get their comeuppance, even while you think maybe that’s not really the best way to deal with the situation. But even though that overall plot outline feels familiar, the devil (or the Wump?) is in the details: Tim’s love of bugs and the insectarium he’s built in his garage, Alberto’s comic book philosophy, and even the ways that at least some of his antagonists get a bit of a redemption arc at the end.
Mister Magic: The Graphic Novel written by Kiersten White, adapted by Scott Peterson, illustrated by Veronica and Andy Fish
Mister Magic was first published back in 2023, but I never actually read it. It sounded intriguing, but I also don’t typically read much horror and I wasn’t sure how creepy it would be. This graphic novel adaptation was published this year, and I figured maybe I could handle this version of it. (As it happens, back in 2023 I wrote about Hide, a graphic novel adaptation of another of Kiersten White’s horror novels.)
The story centers around an old kid’s TV show called Mister Magic, which was originally a radio broadcast and then became a television show. It featured a rotating cast of kids who just played together, creating worlds from their imaginations thanks to the mysterious Mister Magic, who never spoke but was able to make their dreams reality. But in 1991, a tragedy occurred and the show was canceled. What’s more, there are no known recordings of any of the broadcasts, though many people still remember watching the show as kids.
Thirty years later, theories abound about the show and its cast, about how the effects were done, about what actually happened, because nobody seems to be able to remember it very clearly. A podcast is bringing together the final cast for a reunion (and, the internet hopes, the announcement of a reboot). Four of the now-adult actors manage to track down Val, who has been missing since 1991; her father pulled her from the show, fled to an isolated ranch, and kept her in hiding. She doesn’t have any memories of the show or what happened—and now that her father has passed away, she decides to go with them to get some answers.
Those answers are, as you may expect, slow to arrive and very bizarre when they do. When Val shows up in the little town of Bliss (the closest thing to the weird middle-of-the-desert spot where the show was filmed), it’s clear that everyone blames her for “breaking the circle,” for leaving before her time was up, whatever that meant. She discovers that it wasn’t just the show that was wiped from her memory. There’s definitely something wrong with the podcast interviewer, too, and eventually the five friends have to confront the reality of what they experienced as kids.
I don’t want to give away too much more than that, but—as with Hide—White does a great job of creating a creepy history and then revealing it in bits and pieces: through Wikipedia articles, message boards, and so on. This one also has the theme of powerful families trying to maintain their power, with an added dash of controlling parents who want perfect kids. Deliciously creepy, but I’m still not sure if I could handle the full novel!
Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare written by Kevin J. Anderson, illustrated by Raúl Allén & Patricia Martín
This is a graphic novel in a large hardcover format, so it’s slightly larger and about twice as long as a standard comic book issue. The city is attacked by an unknown entity, and Doctor Strange suspects it is linked to a patient in the hospital who is shouting about the universe itself being a dream. When Doctor Strange enters the patient’s mind, he finds himself in the Nightmare Realm … but it is strangely empty. To keep the Multiverse from unraveling, Doctor Strange must travel between dreams and reality, and even work together with an old nemesis.
I will admit that I’m not really familiar with Doctor Strange outside of the film version of him. This story definitely has some very striking artwork (particularly once Strange leaves the world of the mundane), though the dialogue feels a bit mumbo-jumbo at times. In the films, an actor’s delivery can make up for that somewhat, but when reading a book it’s just my own voice in my head, so it’s not quite as compelling. So it’s maybe not quite as spooky as it might seem if it were on a big screen with special effects, but I think the subject matter still fits today’s column. I enjoyed the story, though, and the way Strange figured out how to battle something that seemed impossible to defeat.
Murmuration by TJ Klune
This one, unfortunately, isn’t out until after Halloween, but I got an advance copy and I highly recommend it. This is the first time I’ve read something by TJ Klune, though I know some of the other GeekDad and GeekMom writers have written about him in recent years. Murmuration was originally published in 2016 by another indie publisher, but was picked up by Tor, which has been republishing several of Klune’s older works.
The story takes place in 1954 in Amorea, the perfect little town. Mike Frazier runs the bookshop, and he’s desperately in love with Sean, who works at the diner across the street. And the whole town knows it, and the busybodies have all been conspiring to hurry this slow-burn love story along. He’s been there for three years now, and everyone thinks it’s about time. It’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone. There’s a weekly poker night. The town is gearing up for the annual fall festival. Everything’s within walking distance; there are streets but nobody drives a car.
What’s odd is that Mike doesn’t really remember anything about his life before coming to Amorea. Nobody seems to have details about where they came from. There aren’t ever any visitors from out of town, and nobody in town ever leaves. Lately, though, Mike has been having these strange incidents—visions, perhaps. He hears voices when nobody else is around. He has vivid recurring dreams about a failed marriage, a horrific accident. He could have sworn he saw a strange tattoo on his wrist, but it’s gone now, leaving only an itch.
The story reminds me a bit of that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy realizes that the last six years of her life as a slayer were actually hallucinations, and that she’s been catatonic this whole time. But then within the slayer-verse, this realization was caused by a demon who wants her to think that this reality is all a dream. In Murmuration, Mike Frazier knows that things aren’t exactly right, that it’s strange that he can’t remember anything about his parents. And yet this romance with Sean is the most real thing he can believe in, and he needs to hang onto that.
The heart of the book is this queer love story that is very sweet (and, content warning: it gets briefly explicit), but wrapped up in this somewhat unnerving, what-is-actually-real? scenario that keeps you wondering. I really enjoyed it, and may need to go back and look up some of Klune’s other books now.
Strange Buildings by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion
Last year I came across a book called Strange Houses at the bookstore and bought it on a whim. It turned out to be a very strange, somewhat gruesome tale told through an investigation of houses with strange floor plans. Empty hidden spaces, strange layouts. The narrator consults with an architect friend, who makes guesses about why a room would be designed a certain way, and that leads them to discover other secrets, other houses that are tied to the same mystery.
Strange Buildings is a sequel; a friend got it for me for my birthday. It’s definitely a good fit for today’s stack because it’s pretty creepy. The narrator explains that after the publication of Strange Houses, he frequently gets contacted by people who have their own stories of weird experiences with houses. It begins with a woman who approaches him and describes her childhood home, which had a dead-end hallway next to her bedroom. Then there’s a story about a home in which an old woman was murdered—and the layout of that house is also very strange, with corners that don’t make sense, bedrooms that connect through each other instead of opening onto a hallway. An old out-of-print book describes a strange watermill with a moving wall. As the narrator and his architect friend investigate and come up with theories about these various houses and buildings, it turns out there is a mystery that links them together.
The story uses floor plans and other diagrams throughout the book to illustrate what’s going on, often highlighting sections of a floor plan or making additions or other alterations. The architect comes up with ideas about what might have been there before a renovation, what might have gotten covered up. One story involved a kid whose father talked to them using a cup-and-string phone, and the architect is able to use that to propose a new hypothesis about what was really going on.
A warning: the truth, when it is finally unraveled, is pretty dark and disturbing, so this isn’t a “cozy mystery” sort of book. It’s more for those who have a morbid curiosity. I do find it really interesting the way that the floor plans are used to puzzle things out, though.
My Current Reads
I’ve got another time travel stack started, so that may be my next topic, but I’ve got a few more spooky books as well, so we’ll see if I get those read in time to write up before the month is out! My current read: Beautiful to See You (Again) by Lygia Day Peñaflor. I’ve just gotten to the very first hint of time travel, so we’ll see where it goes from here!
Jonathan H. Liu
Jonathan H. Liu is a stay-at-home dad in Portland, Oregon, who loves to read, is always up for a board game, and has a bit of a Kickstarter habit. I can be reached at jonathan at geekdad dot com.
