The Darker Side of Middle Grade: 6 Novels to Read with The Light On

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz
Right from the beginning, the narrator warns the reader that this is a journey to the darker side of fairytales. Actually, the reader gets several warnings throughout. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re hooked from page one and can’t put this story down. After a rather grisly beginning of their own, Hansel and Gretel decide to set out from their own fairytale, seeking a happier life. As their journey through other Grimm tales progresses, they discover that perhaps theirs was the least traumatic story. In this first book in the Grimm series, Gidwitz sets out to give the reader a behind-the-scenes look at the fairytales we think we know. There’s murder, mayhem, witches, and beasts, as well as a few surprisingly helpful characters who guide the brother and sister along on their journey. A fantastic complement to the more sanitized fairytales many young readers are already familiar with.

The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier
Victorian England. A crumbling manor house. Orphaned Irish siblings, one of whom is lame. It’s the perfect storm for a good creepy story. Jonathan Auxier does not disappoint. We first meet Molly and Kip as they are traveling to the Windsor house to work as servants. Right away, things feel strange. Molly chalks up the happenings at the house to a combination of her own imagination and the creepy setting. But it soon becomes apparent that something else is going on; something drawn up by the Night Gardener, a ghostly being who is attached to the giant tree growing up through the middle of the house. It is the Night Gardener who invades the Windsor family’s dreams, the Night Gardener who guards the house’s greatest secret, and the Night Gardener who is slowly stealing the life from the house’s inhabitants. Told in flowing, whimsical language, and drawn tight with suspense, this is the kind of story that has you flipping pages even as you worry about what will happen next.

Liesl and Po, by Lauren Oliver
Locked in an attic bedroom by her evil-stepmother, with only mice for friends (Cinderella, anyone?), Liesl is used to shadows. But three nights after her father’s death, one of those shadows shifts into a shape, a shadow-being named Po, and his shadow-pet, Bundle. Just as desperate for friendship as Liesl, Po agrees to find her father on the Other Side and bring back a message, in exchange for one of Liesl’s drawings. When Liesl learns her father wishes to be buried next to his first wife so that his soul can move on, she becomes determined to break free of her attic bedroom. Meanwhile, the apothecary’s apprentice, Will, has made a horrible mistake, one that will bring terror down not just on his own head, but on Liesl and Po’s, too.

A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness
13-year-old Conor knows monsters. Monsters like his mother’s cancer. Or the bullies at school. Or the nightmares that plague him and destroy his sleep. Conor’s life is full of monsters. So when a monster shaped like a yew tree appears at his window one night, Conor isn’t surprised. But in the morning, the dropped berries and leaves tell Conor that maybe this monster isn’t in his imagination. Then the monster returns, again and again, telling Conor stories, but also demanding that Conor tell stories—true stories, with truths Conor is not ready to face himself. Woven by the master of dark storytelling, Patrick Ness, this is a tale that blends the real monsters with the imaginary. It’s a story that recognizes that some monsters come from fairytales, but that some of the scariest monsters come from our everyday lives.

Splendors and Glooms, by Laura Amy Schlitz
Another Victorian thriller, this one a 2013 Newbery Honor winner. Master puppeteer Gaspare Grisini knows how to entrance a crowd. His performances are so lifelike, the audience often forgets his puppets aren’t real. When Clara Wintermute, the daughter of a wealthy doctor, sees him perform on the street one day, she just has to have him at her birthday party. Together with his assistants, orphans Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, Gaspare puts on his best show yet. But then Clara disappears the night after the peformance, and Gaspare is the prime suspect. Suddenly, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall find themselves in the middle of a dark mystery, one that reveals not only Clara’s tragic past, but that of Gaspare, and a witch skilled in the blackest of magic. Kidnapping, tragedy, revenge…it’s the kind of story that leaves you holding your breath til the very last page.

The Witch’s Boy, by Kelly Barnhill
Ned and his twin brother Tam are doing what brothers do—building a raft to sail across the river. But when the raft falls apart midstream, Tam drowns. His mother, a Sister Witch, devastated by the loss, stitches Tam’s soul to his brother’s. While her intentions are good, it is Ned who suffers, growing into a shy, stuttering, and awkward boy shunned by his village not only for his strange ways, but for his mother’s guardianship of an unpredictable magic. Then there’s Áine. Once upon a time Áine lived happily with her parents in a village by the sea. But when her mother died, her father found comfort in the bandit community of his past. Now, living deep in the woods, Áine has become the daughter of the Bandit King, a man whose sole mission is to steal the very magic Ned’s mother guards. Through a series of events The Witch’s Boy and The Bandit King’s Daughter will be thrown together and each will be forced to make decisions about who they are, where they come from, and where their paths will go next.
What stories keep you awake in the dark?