# What is the best horror book series for young readers?

> Some of these shelves held 1990s paperback crazes, others newer books that still keep readers up past bedtime. Campfire folklore, vampires and haunted pizzerias are all in the mix.

*By YPB Team · Published October 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-horror-book-series-for-young-readers*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark** — score 1000/1000
   Alvin Schwartz's folklore trilogy famous for Stephen Gammell's nightmarish illustrations.
2. **Goosebumps** — score 494/1000
   R.L. Stine's bestselling 1990s Scholastic series of twist-ending scary stories for middle-grade readers.
3. **Small Spaces Quartet** — score 494/1000
   Katherine Arden's modern middle-grade horror series that begins with a school trip gone wrong.
4. **Bunnicula** — score 428/1000
   James Howe's comic-spooky series about a family pet rabbit suspected of being a vampire.
5. **Skeleton Creek** — score 428/1000
   Patrick Carman's mystery-horror series told through a journal and companion videos.
6. **Fear Street** — score 350/1000
   R.L. Stine's darker teen horror series set in the cursed town of Shadyside.
7. **Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights** — score 350/1000
   Scott Cawthon's anthology series of short horror stories set in the Five Nights at Freddy's universe.
8. **Cirque du Freak** — score 350/1000
   Darren Shan's twelve-book saga about a boy who becomes a vampire's assistant after visiting a freak show.
9. **The Spiderwick Chronicles** — score 350/1000
   Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black's illustrated series about siblings who discover a dangerous hidden world of faeries.
10. **Tales of Terror** — score 350/1000
   Chris Priestley's Victorian-style collections of chilling stories framed by a sinister storyteller.
11. **Lockwood & Co.** — score 350/1000
   Jonathan Stroud's ghost-hunting series about a teenage psychic detective agency in a haunted London.
12. **Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children** — score 350/1000
   Ransom Riggs's eerie fantasy series built around vintage found photographs.
13. **The Wardstone Chronicles** — score 350/1000
   Joseph Delaney's dark fantasy series, published in the US as The Last Apprentice, about a seventh son apprenticed to a witch-fighting Spook.
14. **Spooksville** — score 257/1000
   Christopher Pike's 1990s series of supernatural adventures in a small town crawling with monsters.
15. **The Demonata** — score 257/1000
   Darren Shan's gory ten-book series about young heroes battling demons from another universe.
16. **The Monstrumologist** — score 257/1000
   Rick Yancey's Gothic horror series about an orphan assisting a doctor who hunts monsters in 1880s New England.

Tags: books, children, horror, teens, halloween