"A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. Children's books can be dark but extremely effective conduits to deal with unspoken fears and real-life events.

You may have noticed a tendency on ReadItDaddy to favour books that often feature monsters, and can sometimes be fairly scary for little ones. Our theme week this week looks into the dark side of children's books with a selection that deal with subjects that can be extremely tricky to do 'right' in children's literature, but hopefully showing you examples where authors and illustrators have absolutely nailed it.

In the header, you can see an image from Patrick Ness's superb "A Monster Calls". The book deals with a child's perception of his mother's illness (in this case, cancer) and the inevitability that one day she will die. Death in children's books is a theme that is often skirted around but Patrick describes it without 'flowering it up' or beating about the bush. For a child, mortality is not always easy to explain away in spiritual terms (particularly if parents do not have any religious beliefs themselves) and it's also not easy to describe how people can live on in the memory when to a child, the tangible presence means more than the intangible.

"La Visite De Petit Mort" by Kitty Crowther. More to death than meets the eye.

"La Visite De Petit Mort" is a French language book we reviewed last November that also deals with death - this time not of a loved one but of the child themselves. Dark but somehow managing to retain an air of child-like 'cuteness' the story is actually more Death's than the child's. Death trying to understand why a particular child seems happy to be taken away from all they know. It's a book that, on deeper analysis, broaches the subject of death in a way that a child may not have anticipated - that for some people (even children) death can sometimes be a release, not unwelcome.

Dark books aren't always as complex as this. Books that describe a child's more immediate fears can be dark in tone, and in fact books that deal with a fear of the dark itself could fill an entire shelf in your collection.

"The Dark" by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen. Hi Dark, Hi.

Recently we've really enjoyed Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen's "The Dark" (In fact it was Charlotte's "Book of the Week" back in March). The story of a little boy, Laszlo, who bravely one night ventures into the realm of the dark that shares his house, it's quite a tough book to read to a child who genuinely does have a fear of the dark (and most children seem to), because of the pace of the book perhaps. It takes quite a while getting to the message that there's nothing to fear from the dark, and the end pay-off where Laszlo realises this, is left (rather deliciously in our opinion) until the very last pages in the book. Of course, if you're a parent who likes to read stories aloud to your children and make a bit of an 'act' of things, it's too tempting to use your raspiest most sinister voice for 'The Dark' (in fact I used a voice that was part Lord Voldemort, part gurgling monster). Not a great idea at bedtime, admittedly.

But it's a great book, in fact Klassen and Snicket was a partnership made in dark-book heaven. Both have a rich sense of why books like this appeal to children, whereas you'd expect children to shy away from something that seems inherently scary from the get-go.

"The Bear Under The Stairs" by Helen Cooper. A boy's eye view of an unseen menace.

"The Bear Under the Stairs" by Helen Cooper is a book that took us a very long time to love. In fact if you glance back through our blog you'll notice we've reviewed it twice. First it was almost too dark, scary and disturbing for Charlotte to cope with and gave her some pretty horrible nightmares. But it was demanded again and again. Why would a child consistently ask for a book that scared them so much that it gave them nightmares (more poignant question, why would a parent read that book to their child again and again?)

You'll notice the book - on second review - became one of our Books of the Week, purely because as Charlotte got older, she 'got it' and understood that the book was about dealing with your fears - making you confront them and that was my aim when persevering with reading it to her. Is Bear actually scary? Or is William more scary than Bear...

I know who I find more scary in this book.

I should point out that half of the book's appeal lies in what's suggested and what's hidden. You'll notice that the book does not directly describe the bear being scary at all, in fact the poor beast just wants somewhere to live. It's in William's head that you hear the bear 'saying' that he's hungry and would rather like to eat a young boy. Helen Cooper expertly plays with the reader's perception of the real message of the book, and right at the end she even mischievously bats the ball right back into the reader's court with the final frame of what happens with Bear. I won't ruin it for you, it's probably one of the best endings of a 'dark' children's book that you'll ever see.

So where is the line? Where does a book cross over from the light to the dark path? Some books are described as 'dark' purely on rather visceral thrills, or by 'visually' breaking the rules of what perhaps parents feel is an acceptable level of 'scary'.

"The Fearsome Beastie" by Giles Paley-Phillips. No beating about the bush, this beastie is a complete rotter!

Giles Paley-Phillips' book "The Fearsome Beastie" does not mess around, does not play on a child's subconscious but arguably features one of the darkest and nastiest monsters in children's books. The titular beastie tricks children into thinking he's a lonely soul, and just wants a few friends to play with - before unceremoniously scoffing the children up in one gulp! The story's almost like Little Red Riding Hood in reverse, with the wolf winning the day from the get go and then the story backtracking to the point where a truly kick-ass Grandma gives the Beastie what for, in what has been described as one of the most shocking images in children's books.

Giles has a talent for monstery works, and in interviews you'll hear him talk about the lure of 'scary' books for children. In fact Charlotte doesn't find this book scary at all any more, simply because it's made clear that the beastie is a bad lot, there's no psychological manipulation going on here (other than the Beastie's plaintive claims that it just wants a hug, not dinner, at the start of the book).

We'll be looking at a few more 'dark' children's books as we delve deeper into this week's theme - but as ever, we welcome your input - in fact we are counting on it as the well has run a little dry with the dark stuff lately. Do you have a favourite darkly delicious children's book? Or can you describe a scene in a children's book that made you blanche in terror, yet had your children laughing their heads off? Drop a comment below or tweet us @readitdaddy, we would truly love to hear about them.

Beryl the Peril from Topper / Dandy Comics. Put her in a room with Madeline and see who wins!

Twitter is a great source of topics for these little editorial articles. A recent debate talked about the reasons children like naughty characters and dark stories, in essence, why are children always attracted to books and stories that would make a Victorian maiden aunt scamper for the smelling salts?

Most parents and teachers will know the answer to this. Kids are not always the blessed little angels we imagine them to be and Charlotte is no exception. In case I've somehow mistakenly led regular readers to believe that she is, in fact, Walter from Dennis the Menace (albeit a female version) or a wondrous virtuous and perfectly well behaved version of Matilda from the Roald Dahl story, nothing could be further from the truth.

She's very polite and well behaved - most of the time - but I noticed that she always reacts favourably to stories where kids are little terrors, smart, naughty and conniving and it struck me why time and time again kids love reading about characters like these.

She also loves stories that explore darker themes. Not horrible mind-bendingly disturbing stuff, but stories that take a walk on the wild side exploring themes that deal with childhood fears, monstrous entities and villainous schemes.

Of course, naughty characters and dark themes are nothing new. Take Dennis the Menace (who is fast approaching his 66th birthday!) Dennis's behaviour in issues of "The Beano" probably isn't really that bad by modern standards (I don't think I ever recall reading a Dennis the Menace story where he purposely vandalised his neighbours car purely because his neighbour shouted out of the window at him) but for certain kids, Dennis's cheeky antics almost make him into a folk hero. He always gets the better of his dad (point of observation here as Charlotte is a bit of a Beano fan, when did Dennis's dad mutate from a tall Hitler-moustached pin stripe suit wearing comb-over slipper wielder into a sort of taller version of Dennis himself?), he usually gets the better of his teachers, and despite all the influence and money at his disposal, Walter never manages to quite win one over on Dennis or his ever-present poochy pal Gnasher.

Kids, of course, would never want to read a story where Dennis somehow saw the error of his ways and became a polite and well behaved little chap overnight. Living a vicariously naughty life through a favourite story character is a huge part of the appeal, so it's easy to see why kids also love dark and scary books.

There's a different set of criteria that can be readily identified in successful dark children's books, and sometimes books can be dark and scary to children when their intention is quite the opposite. Take Jon Klassen and Lemony Snicket's "The Dark" (a book that, like so many other dark and scary books, hit our Book of the Week slot with consummate ease).

Jon Klassen and Lemony Snicket's "The Dark" - Let me count the ways we love this bit where Laszlo says "Hi dark, hi!"

When I first read this to Charlotte, on a dark night before bedtime, the message in the book (a positive message that the dark wasn't actually to be feared) was lost on her completely - perhaps in some part because I adopted a dark whispering voice for the dark (stupid daddy) or perhaps because the book's summary - "The dark is always there!" isn't really something children want to think about too closely when they're about to switch off the light themselves.

Oddly though, I expected Charlotte to hate the book, to never want to hear it again but the very next night she demanded it again, and the night after that (and so on until I really thought we ought to read something else, as I gently pointed out that we're supposed to review lots of books not just one!)

Along similar lines, Levi Pinfold's utterly sublime "The Black Dog" also sniffed its way into a Book of the Week award like a big Jeffy...

"The Black Dog" by Levi Pinfold. Has there ever been a more darkly beautiful children's book?

The story's central message this time is that no matter how tiny you are, you can still be brave in the face of something very big, dark and scary. Again Charlotte had a love-hate thing going for this book while we were reading it for the first time, but as the story reaches its conclusion it becomes uplifting and positive, and was in constant demand for weeks (and still is).

When we sat down to talk about this editorial idea, I asked Charlotte what her scariest book was. That's quite a question for a 7 year old who (to date) has contributed to and either read or had read to her over 2000 books but without a pause she picked quite a surprising one...

"The Bear Under the Stairs" by Helen Cooper. Scary Beary!

Helen Cooper's sublime "The Bear Under the Stairs" has been reviewed here a couple of times. First time we read it and reviewed it, it gave Charlotte nightmares so my first review reflected this and we relucantly gave up our library copy very soon after we'd loaned it.

An odd thing happened though. On our next library visit, Charlotte wanted it again - and wanted it read. Knowing what to expect second time around, it switched from being a book that worked psychologically on a child's fears (both visible and imagined) to a book where Charlotte knew that the bear actually wasn't there to harm William - and though William's mum (and later evidence in the story) hinted that it might have been an imaginary bear, the bear was actually real.

We got into quite a deep discussion about whether bear actually was there and the final scene of bear parachuting into another child's house is a delicious bit of double-switching by Helen, almost cycling the story back to page one again.

It got me thinking about things that adults find scary. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never really read a piece of fiction that's scared me (even as a child I also loved the dark stuff and we had some corkingly good ghost and supernatural stories when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s) but books that scared me as a kid were always non fiction. True accounts of horrors in the real world, that kept me awake at night (I remember staying at a relative's house when I was about 10 or 11, and idly poking through their book case for something to read - ending up with a rather horrific and graphic non-fiction account of the Christie murders at 10 Rillington Place. Eesh!)

It must be the toughest thing in the world to get that balance right for kids. Too naughty or mischievous and kids will assume your character is a baddie, and won't want any truck with him or her. If your story is too dark, too obviously disturbing, kids will just stop reading. Not dark or scary enough and kids will see through a thinly veiled attempt to spook them. We'd love to hear your best examples of books where the main characters seemingly get away with being absolute rotters - and also your fave scary and dark stories for kids. Do comment below!

We love Halloween and though we're not much on Trick or Treating, we do love to nestle down in All Hallows Eve with a good spooky book or ten.

So here are ten favourites that err on the dark side of the street.

Teaming up for a breathtakingly original book, Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen's sublime "The Dark" is the story of Laszlo, a little boy who lives in a big draughty house.

When Laszlo's night light breaks one evening, The Dark seizes the opportunity to steal into Laszlo's room.

But Laszlo isn't scared - he knows where the dark comes from, and knows just how to make the darkness go away.

It's inventive stuff, a well deserved Book of the Week when it first appeared on the blog and a book that we always read and re-read around Halloween - breaking out the croakiest whispering voice for The Dark itself.

"The Dark" by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen is published by Orchard Books. 


Darkness is a recurring theme in the spookiest children's books and another classic also crops up in our top ten with darkness as a character...

Ella Burfoot's "Darkness Slipped In" features a much more mischievous dark who visits a young girl's room one evening.

This particular darkness might look scary and spooky but young Daisy isn't the least bit scared. She invites him in for tea and cakes, and for a spooky halloween dance!

We weren't sure whether this one was a mite too disturbing and nightmarish when we first reviewed it, but it's gone on to become a real fave now Charlotte is a lot older.

"Darkness Slipped In" by Ella Burfoot is published by Macmillan Children's Books. 

This may be a relatively new book on the blog but we were instantly impressed with how spooky this book is...

Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem "The Raven" is brought to stunning life in this new adaptation, with David Pelham and Christopher Wormell literally making a book that leaps out at you from the shelf.

It's a 3D papercraft tour de force in a pop-up version of the poem full of chilling rhymes and of course equally chilling spring-out-and-nip-your-nose bits that are so deliciously crafted, that you can't help wondering if that tapping at the window pane is just a branch, or the dark cawing bird itself!

Utterly divine book engineering coupled with Poe's verse really should see this become an instant halloween classic for wee ones who love a chilling tale.

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, David Pelham and Christopher Wormell is out now, published by Abrams Books. 


Slightly more light hearted but still a great spooky read...

"The Deep Dark Wood" by Algy Craig Hall and Ali Pye is a neatly spooky twist on a well-loved favourite.

Down in the wood, little red riding hood innocently trips along the dark paths, off to granny's house for a visit.

Naturally the dark creatures of the wood are keeping a close eye on her - including a big nasty wolf.

But who is actually the REAL menace in the woods? This book keeps the twist right until the end but it's so beautifully delivered that we couldn't help but laugh out loud!

"The Deep Dark Wood" by Algy Craid Hall and Ali Pye is published by Orchard Books. 

Book Number 5? Are you still alive? Keep reading as there's more brilliance to come!

Talented actress Evangeline Lilly teams up with a creative genius from the award-winning WETA Workshop team for a twisted tale with a difference.

In "The Squickerwonkers" a rather spoilt little girl meets her comeuppance in a rather horrible way, but does she deserve her dark fate? As she watches a stage show by a group of puppets, the rhymes hide their true intention - to show the girl a lesson she'll never forget - for she will join their terrifying troupe!

We loved this when we reviewed it, surprised to find that a celebrity-penned book could be so brilliantly original and spooky. Quirky illustrations also lend the whole thing a Gaiman-esque air of menace so it's a perfect little chiller of a book to share this evening!

"The Squickerwonkers" by Evangeline Lilly and Johnny Fraser-Allen is published by Titan Books. 

We're over the halfway mark, so what's at number six in our halloween list-me-do?

A glorious modern telling of classic Hans Christian Andersen tales comes from the hugely talented duo known as Metaphrog.

"The Red Shoes and Other Tales" starts off with the titular tale, presented here in its original form - a darkly delicious moral tale of a young girl whose avaricious love of a pair of amazing new shoes leads to her ultimate undoing.

There's only one way to stop those shoes from dancing away with you! EEEEK!

Presented here with several other dark tales from Andersen's stories, Metaphrog's brilliant graphic novel treatment of the stories are absolutely perfect to share out loud as this evening's torchlit spooky storytimes begin.

"The Red Shoes and Other Tales" by Metaphrog is published by Papercutz. 

Sticking with brilliant graphic novels, here's a witchy tale full of magic and mighty girls...

"Maddy Kettle - The Adventure of the Thimblewitch" by Eric Orchard is a fantastic action-packed adventure full of originality and invention.

Maddy's parents are always telling her to be careful, but one day when dad brings home an amazing floating singing toad, Maddy's life takes a dark turn for the worse. Goblins invade and her mum and dad end up being turned into mice by a nefarious dark entity known as The Thimblewitch.

Maddy has no choice but to track down the witch to her lair, to demand that the spell is lifted!

Whimsical and brilliant, this is the sort of comic adventure that we love recommending to folk who think comics are daft.

"Maddy Kettle - The Adventure of the Thimblewitch" is published by Top Shelf Books. 

Book Numbero HUIT next...so what else can we chill you to the bone with?

(See what we did there?)

Ten Spooky Skeletons by Garry Parsons is a great little counting book for tiny tiddlers.

It's full of skeleton antics as children count up to ten along with the craziest gang of bony dudes you've ever seen in your life.

Special mention to the book that glows gently in the dark, perfect for reading by torchlight!

You can find our original review of this fun toddler-friendly book here.

"Ten Spooky Skeletons" by Garry Parsons is published by Caterpillar Publishing.


Number 9 is looking just fine, let's dip into the deep dark book bag for just two more...

We couldn't possibly miss this fella out, it's one of our favourite picture books of all time.

"The Bear Under the Stairs" by Helen Cooper is a spooky tale though not really linked with Halloween.

In the book, a young boy imagines that a rather gruff grizzly bear lives in the under-stairs cupboard (must be a bit of a squeeze for Harry Potter when he comes to stay!). Is the bear really in the boy's mind?

Helen Cooper playfully works awesome bear-shapes into her illustrations (you'll have as much fun spotting them as you will reading the story). It's utterly brilliant and one of those books we love introducing folk to.

"The Bear under the Stairs" by Helen Cooper is published by Picture Corgi.

Last one, let's see what we've got next...

This one completely took us by surprise when we first reviewed it. A stunningly illustrated and hugely original dark tale of a mysterious hotel, a pair of perfect villains and a little boy who just wants to be happy.

"Warren the 13th and the All Seeing Eye" by Tania Del Rio and Will Staehle is a brilliant spooky read for older kids - perfect for fans of "The Addams Family" and other cool ghoulish stuff.

Poor Warren's uncle and aunt - his guardians -  are completely hopeless, leaving Warren to run their hotel mostly by himself.

Warren soon discovers that the hotel holds deep dark secrets, and his Aunt seems to know more about them than she's letting on. When her sisters also turn up to stay, things go from bad to worse for Warren. Will a new-found ally help him discover the hotel's hidden depths before it's far too late?

Quirkily brilliant - well it would be - "Warren the 13th and the All Seeing Eye" is published by Quirk Books. 

Have a fantastic halloween - and stay safe!

Once again, we are faced with the near-impossible task of choosing between two books as Book of the Week this week. When a mysterious parcel came to the door, bearing a rather beautiful label with our address on and a young boy shining a torch, we weren't quite sure what to expect.

Opening the parcel, we were greeted with something that looked like it belonged in Stanley Kubrick's '2001 - A Space Odyssey".

The mysterious black box. Exciting? You betcha!

A black box? It could only mean one thing - the fruit of probably one of the most amazing collaborations in recent children's picture book history. The razor sharp writing and deliciously black prose of Lemony Snicket and the fantastic artwork of Jon Klassen.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we present to you our review and indeed one half of our Book of the Week nominations for this week - "The Dark"

A little boy, Laszlo, is afraid of the dark. All through the day, the dark lives in the basement under the house, or perhaps behind a cupboard or shower curtain - but at night the dark creeps out to envelop every room. Nothing can stop it, save for Laszlo and his nightlight and torch.

Laszlo is an incredibly brave little guy. In the daytime, he stands at the top of the stairs and talks to the dark. "Hi Dark, Hi" he says. But one night, the dark does not stop at Laszlo's door, it comes to visit him!

Peekaboo, I see you!

As you'd expect from such a pairing (and indeed from Orchard Books), this is a children's book of the highest possible quality. The positive message delivered around Laszlo's bravery, and the dark's 'voice' had such an electrifying effect on Charlotte that we worried it might dwell on her mind at night at her bedtime. But she loved Laszlo almost immediately, and loved the fact that Laszlo (just like her) had a nightlight and torch to keep the dark at bay.

We often wonder why children are immediately drawn to books that are dark in tone, perhaps it's for the same reasons that adults seek out extreme ways of scaring themselves. Horror films, crazy roller coasters, extreme sports, naked bungee jumping, that sort of thing.

To Charlotte though, this book was just utterly perfect. We still won't be reading it to her at bedtime - and we always choose the brightest days to dip into it, but we admire the way the book empowers children through Laszlo to challenge their own fears, and particularly for children (like Charlotte) who are afraid of the dark, the way it ends with reassurance and perhaps even a strong message of understanding and friendship rather than something that merely goes 'bump' in the night.

Charlotte's best bit: The 'voice' I read the dark in. A monotone, no emotion, completely flat (and very hard to do with a book you're trying not to scare a child with). Think Cyberman-voice, eek!

Daddy's favourite bit: As a massive fan of "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" and also of Jon Klassen's other children's books, who could possibly resist this?

(Kindly sent to us for review by Orchard Books. "The Dark" is available in Hardback on 3rd April 2013)

"Darkness Slipped In" by Ella Burfoot. Spooky, Dark, Delicious!

"The Dark" by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen. Hi Dark, Hi!

"Spookyrumpus" by Tony Mitton and Guy Parker-Rees. Why didn't the skeleton go to the ball...?

"Tamara Small and the Monsters' Ball" by Giles Paley-Phillips and Gabriele Antonini. Monstrously good!

"Dark" books are something we've blogged about a lot over the years. Those books that tread a fine line between helping a kid overcome their fears, and actually making their fears ten times worse.

We first read Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen's brilliantly atmospheric "The Dark" way back in 2013. At the time C was indeed like Laszlo, the main character in this fantastic book, a kid who really didn't like the dark - taking to sleeping with the landing light on and her door open a crack, or with her moon-shaped night-light on her bedside table.

Laszlo's fear of the dark is compounded one night when he has to confront the dark in the deepest darkest place in the house - the basement.

Those of you who have grown up fed on a diet of American movies where kids are petrified of the basement in their sprawling American houses will know where Snicket and Klassen are coming from here. What marked this book out for us was that it was something that ended up becoming a performance piece every time I read it to C, adopting a slightly gravelly (let's face it - menacing!) voice for the dark antagonist in the book.

But the book performs a deft twist at the end, as Laszlo realises that the dark isn't the 'bad guy' after all.

The book opens in the peachy hues of the setting sun, the precursor to Laszlo's anxiety

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Daniel Handler after the recent revelations about his rather sleazy behaviour at book cons and events, but this story is more Klassen's anyway, working brilliantly largely due to the atmospheric illustrations that ramp up the feeling of Laszlo's growing anxiety as the night begins to arrive - brought to a head by his nightlight dying unceremoniously at the start of the tale...

"Down Here" (if a clown's face and a balloon appears, RUN!)

Laszlo literally has to confront his fear head on - and Klassen begins to wrap the inkiest blackness around his characterisation of Laszlo as he descends into the basement.

As a great example of how to do a 'dark' book for kids without going too overboard, this works really brilliantly and even now in the deepest darkest moments in our lives when opening and closing your eyes to the dark makes no difference at all, you'll hear us whisper "Hi Dark, Hi" just like Laszlo, basking in the happy memories this book invokes.

Original Review Link:

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week ending 1st March 2013 Part 1: Charlotte's choice - "The Dark" by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen (Orchard Books)

Bear and Rabbit in "I Want My Hat Back". Both enter, only one leaves...

The Witch of the East. Fairy-scoffing and darkly decadent.

Mog in the Dark. Stay away from those wild mushrooms, Ms Kerr!

Our Chapter Book of the Week shows that even when you're an omnipotent and nefarious dark lord, things don't always go to plan when you meet someone FAR worse than you!

Every time we hear that Emma Yarlett has produced a new book, or is illustrating someone else's stories, we get a little over-excited. Charlotte is a huge fan of Emma's - because her artwork is always gorgeously detailed, there's always a necessity to read her books again and again and again so you don't miss anything, and her stories are deftly woven to inspire and delight.

"Orion and the Dark" deals with a theme we have seen several times before, and looking back through the blog it's a theme that seems to consistently feature in books that end up as our "Book of the Week" nominees. Children's fear of the dark can be a very real fear - and a problem for parents who want to make sure that their child feels safe in their environment, and also get a good night's sleep so they're not complete grumpy-chops in the morning.

Most recently we absolutely loved "The Dark" by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen, and Emma Yarlett's tale adopts a similar theme, but approaches things in a fresh and engaging way.

Orion (coolest name ever!) is a little lad who has many fears, not just of the dark. Darkness is the worst though, and Orion hates all the spaces in the house that are dark (like under the bed and inside the wardrobe). Poor Orion's imagination works overtime and he gets into a real lather. One night, worse than all the others, something amazing happens. The dark comes to visit Orion but is the complete opposite of the nasty monstrous dark Orion was expecting.

Thus unfolds a new chapter in Orion's tale, which we'll leave you to discover in this lovely book (lovely THICK book we should say, it's a really nice long story for a special treat when you want to send your children off to the land of nod with a belter of a tale).

Emma's talent is that she engages children on two levels in her books, she wraps them up in an exciting and stimulating story, then engages their curiosity and observation with her beautiful illustrations. We mentioned at the top of the review how gorgeously detailed they are, and how Emma uses various media, collage and top-notch character work to give her stories a truckload of immersion and emotion.

We've gushed enough. Simply put, go and buy this book. If your own children have their own fears about darkness and what lurks therein, this could be a really brilliant book to offer reassurance that the dark is nothing to be scared of - in fact sometimes the dark holds hidden wonders and amazement all of its own.

Charlotte's best bit: There are some utterly brilliant spreads in this where elements of the page 'fold out' to describe the action in the story. Truly wonderful and such a brilliant idea to immerse children in the story and in books this way.

Daddy's Favourite bit: For someone relatively new and fresh to children's books, Emma is fast becoming the safest pair of hands in the business for both illustration and storytelling duties. This is a theme we've seen before but Emma's take on it feels original and engaging from page one right through to the end.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Templar Publishing)

We can't resist jumping on a halloween-ey bandwagon if we spot one (moving aside a few pumpkins and skeletons so we can actually fit on) so we thought we'd share our updated Halloween Top Ten Children's Picture Books.

In no particular order, let the ghoulish games begin!

1) Not Now Bernard by David McKee (Andersen Children's Books)

We've read this book again, and again, and again and we still can't get enough of it. Take one little boy named Bernard, throw in a rather preoccupied Mum and Dad, and a monster who lives in the garden and watch the story unfold with plenty of hilarious twists and turns.

As Charlotte gets older, she starts to analyse whether the monster is real or imagined, whether Bernard is actually the monster and we get into deep discussions about the whole thing. Most of all though this is still the most excellent fun to read aloud (particularly if you love doing very silly gurgly monster voices like we do!)

If you've never encountered Bernard and the Monster, Halloween is the best time to do so!


2) Cake Girl by David Lucas (Andersen Children's Books)

A witchy tale with a difference this, with the sublime and original story of a lonely witch and her confectionary creation Cake Girl. On her birthday a witch creates a marvellous cake-shaped girl but what is a girl without life? A few spells later and the witch finds Cake Girl to be a charming companion.

But Cake Girl wants more out of life. After all, why should the witch have all the magical fun! So when the witch bestows her magic powers on Cake Girl, what will happen next?

This is a simple but extremely charming story and it's as delicious to read as it is to flick through and gaze in wonder at the gorgeous illustrations. As sweet as a nut!


3) Mog in the Dark by Judith Kerr (HarperCollins Children's Books)

This is one CRAZY book. You may be familiar with lovely Judith Kerr's most brilliant feline creation Mog, but what happens when this lovely old lady lets the veil slip a little - and shows us a slightly surreal and dark insight into cat nightmares in "Mog in the Dark".

It's almost as if Judith Kerr woke up one morning and said "Oh bother to drawing all that cute stuff, I'm going to let rip!" - and let rip she does in such deliciously dark style that we cannot resist this book!

Imagine The Island of Doctor Moreau crossed with a serious acid trip and you're probably on the way to describing this particularly dark and gorgeous episode in Mog's adventurous life. We LOVE it!


4) Harry and the Monster by Sue Mongredien and Nick East (Little Tiger Press)

We do love a good monster tale, oh yes we do! "Harry and the Monster" by Sue Mongredien and Nick East dips into the recurring nightmare of a young boy who nightly falls asleep and dreams of a huge nasty dribbling snarling monster! EEK!

This isn't a cuddly monster. This isn't a nice monster, he's an absolute rotter but don't lose heart just yet, there's a nicely delivered twist at the end that flips things entirely around! Find out what happens to Harry in the end, in this particularly brilliant monster tale!

Special mention to Nick East's artwork which is utterly glorious in this!


5) Monster Day at Work by Sarah Dyer (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

A rather marvellous monster book from Sarah Dyer and though it's not particularly spooky or scary, it does show that monsters have a life outside running around scaring the bejesus out of people. Find out what happens during the average day at work for an office-bound monster!

We particularly loved the monster lunch!






6) Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse by Chris Riddell (Macmillan Children's Books)

This is a darkly delicious gothic tale that's kid-friendly but features more than its fair share of ghostly goings on. The most adorable ghost of all though is the Ghost Mouse of the title, a glorious little fellow named Ishmael who meets young Ada Goth and embarks on their first adventure together.

This is so brilliant, illustrated throughout in Chris's brilliant penmanship with an utterly wonderful little mini-adventure for Ishmael tucked into the back cover.

No better way to introduce your little ones to all things gothic! LOVE!!


7) Spooky Spooky House by Andrew Weale and Lee Wildish (Picture Corgi)

A lift-the-flap delight that's bound to send a shiver down your spine. "Spooky Spooky House" by Andrew Weale and Lee Wildish teases you at every page turn with calamitous and spooky goings on in a rattleshack old house.

Dare you discover the demonic delights within? It's an awesome book, like a literary ramble around a haunted house with a ton of brilliant little touches tucked away between its covers.

Definitely suitable for younger readers who will love the flaps and will love the final (not really) terrifying reveal at the end of the book!

8) The Dark by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen (Orchard Books)

This book completely blew our tiny little minds when it first arrived, clad in a very dark black box, nestling in dark paper. It's since become a real favourite at bedtimes despite its rather dark content. It's the story of Laszlo, a little boy who lives in a huge (and sometimes very dark) house. Laszlo isn't really sure he likes the dark as it nestles in the basement or behind the shower curtain in his house. One night, Laszlo's night light goes off - and suddenly the dark creeps into Laszlo's room! EEEEEEK!

Read on though, it's such a fantastic tale with a brilliant pay-off, from two utterly talented chaps!



9) Lockwood and Co - The Screaming Staircase / The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud (Doubleday Children's Books)

An absolute belter of a pair of tales from Jonathan Stroud, introducing us to an alternate reality where ghosts are a lot more dangerous than the whispy ghosties we're used to.

This is fantastic storytelling, harking back to a time when children's ghost stories didn't wrap the reader up in cotton wool and were properly spooky and scary. We meet Lockwood, Lucy and George - a team of mini-ghostbusters who become one of London's most respected team of spectre-smashers!

Suitable for older readers (and mums and dads who love a cracking good ghost yarn!)

10) No Such Thing by Ella Bailey (Flying Eye Books)

An absolutely glorious book that's perhaps more hilarious than spooky but it's such a lot of fun to flick through and read the tale of young Ella.

Strange things keep happening in her house, and she can't believe that there's a supernatural explanation for these goings-on. But can you spot the naughty little ghosties tucked away in each page spread?

A brilliantly satisfying halloween-flavoured book that's destined to become a firm favourite with your little banshees and ghouls!

At one point or another in their young lives, most kids go through a phase of being afraid of the dark...

Nope, this book has absolutely nothing to do with a mouse scurrying up Batman's leg, but Simon Prescott's ethereal atmospheric little book "On a Dark Dark Night" is a lovely bed-time read. A little mouse takes a perilous journey in search of food, through the dark dark streets, through dark dark gardens and into a dark dark house.

I recently read an article where the value of repetition in children's stories was questioned, and whether rhymes could help a child learn to read. Our take on this, here at ReadItDaddy is that both have a place in children's books and repetition (and beginning to learn the familiarity of letter and word 'shapes') definitely has a great deal of value when it comes to a child's first faltering steps into the bookworld.

Simon Prescott's book may feel repetitive and probably won't win any prizes for the deepest of plots, but it does help a child to recognise the repeated words, the themes and also aids their comprehension of a story tenfold.

Entertaining and atmospheric when read to a child, but also a really good start for children who are almost busting their britches to learn to read.

Charlotte's best bit: Mouse's scurry up the drainpipe

Daddy's favourite bit: Prescott's lovely use of a limited palette of colours and superb light/shadow to give the book a metric ton of nocturnal atmosphere.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A master class in dark storytelling, "Black Dog" by Levi Pinfold

Sure, we've banged on about this one quite often but it's a subject that seems to have had a bit of a resurgence on Twitter over the last couple of weeks, so once again we're digging into it in our regular #ReaditTorial slot.

Many well-meaning articles demonstrate the allure of sometimes dark and quite often grisly children's stories, with quite a few of the most celebrated 'darker' children's books hailing from non-english-speaking countries and creators. For example, the french in particular seem to be absolutely brilliant experts at designing and devising darker children's books without aiming straight for the 'jump scare' approach.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the clamouring renewed demands aimed at publishers to start indulging authors and illustrators who want to explore darker themes in children's books makes sense. After all, authors feel that they are in direct competition to some extent with the rise, and rise, and unchecked / unmonitored rise in darker content available to kids via other means - chiefly the internet, and in particular YouTube.

I doubt anyone involved in kidlit would want to see books arriving on shelves that were in any way derivative of the sort of horrible mind-bendingly inappropriate content viewable on YouTube and other social media outlets, but there's something to be said for the undercurrent bubbling under this fresh demand for darker material - the rise and rise of 'issues' books, particularly in picture book form, that feel each and every story must set out to set the world to right in some way.

Most book bloggers worth their salt will be able to reel off a huge list of 'dark' books that perform the neat balancing trick of having a darker look and feel about them, but masking off their moral message without jamming it in your face in the last quarter of the book (in the case of the book featured in our header image, "Black Dog" by Levi Pinfold, the subject of fear itself is dealt with deftly and beautifully, and the underlying message of Small's bravery is more subtly woven into the story than being the be all and end all of this darkly delicious tale).

I do take issue with the 'grown-up' way of looking at this issue. In some ways, it feels like creatives are merely prodding a red ants nest that threatens to explode.  We often become carried away with the notion that the death of dark books is purely about agents and publishers 'nannying' kids away from anything that might play on their minds long after the covers are closed and the other covers are pulled up around their chins before bedtime. So let's be clear about what 'dark' actually means, and it definitely does not mean creating something that's going to scare the living pee out of a child to such an extent that it could actually put them off stories and books for good.

C has a rather neat approach to dark books - she enjoys them, and is at the moment firmly wrapped up in the brilliant world of "Lockwood and Co" by Jonathan Stroud...

These books are always read during the day (currently we squeeze a reading session in before school, which always takes a bit of juggling, but is nonetheless satisfying and helps us get through our review pile a bit quicker).

Though Jonathan's books hark back to the heady days of the 70s and 80s when kids books really were a lot darker (as we've mentioned before, anyone who remembers all those Thames Methuen ghost anthologies will remember just how scary those books were), they are nonetheless compelling and demand to be read.

Kids don't always want to play it safe with books, but the best 'dark' books are never purely about scares - they're about a tight observation of what it actually is that works on a child's mind, and in some ways you can understand why agents and publishers steer clear of them.

Most kids spend a lot of their childhood scared or something. Whether it's an irrational fear of buttons, or a very real fear of heights, water, even birds, the majority of scary books usually aim for the easy way out, and end up pretty harmless and not dark or scary at all.

We tend to like books that leave a twist entirely up to the reader to interpret, and we rather like it when authors merely raise their eyebrows enigmatically if anyone tries to analyse their books to death in interviews and such. To my mind, there's not nearly enough mystery left in stories, possibly because internet pundits do love to neatly compartmentalize everything, including kids books.

Authors and illustrators who have kids or young relatives themselves have a ready resource to tap into in order to write authoritatively about fear and fear response. Most will also expertly draw on their own childhood memories of what scared them, and there's a very good chance that today's kids will also find those things scary too (for me, the opening credits to a TV show called "Armchair Thriller" still nudges at the back of my memory as something that traumatised me as a kid. Book wise it was nearly always stuff I read that I really had no business reading!)

We do have to draw a pretty firm line between the camps of "Dark & scary" and "traumatic" and the distant camp of "Bloody disturbing" (and in some of the articles wishing for a return to darker themes, a lot of the qualifying books brought up as an example really aren't dark or scary, but pretty flipping sick-making and harrowing if you boil them down to their constituent parts).

As I've said before in ReadItTorials, the children's picture book market in particular could do with taking off the safety stabilisers, perhaps letting kids experience the imbalanced wobble of fear from time to time. Going through books that have become "Book of the Week" faves over the years, we see books again and again that veer off the fluffy bunny path and dig deep into the twisted boughs of the dark scary woods instead, but as we all know, all kids are different - and children's books are finally beginning to realise that there's no 'one size fits all' approach when it comes to stories.

I have a huge amount of respect for authors who can not only write dark stuff successfully, but can find an agent or publisher who is willing to take a chance that their book will fly. Without them, we'd be left with 'safe' but perhaps a far less interesting and less diverse / rich book world to dive into.

Our Second Book of the Week this week is dark, gothic and utterly brilliant. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" rises from the grave...!