Sign-In
Cart
50 Ghost Stories for Middle School
Paperback
Publisher: Clara M Everhart
Published: Aug 22 2026
Pages: 242
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.55 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
50 companion stories. 322 discussion questions. 111 classroom activities. One collection built entirely from the edges of the frame.
Every ghost story worth telling leaves someone standing just outside its frame - a neighbor who heard the shriek but not the confession, a housekeeper who buried the last tenant and warned the next one anyway, an innkeeper who kept a private ledger of things she officially didn't believe in. This collection is built entirely from those overlooked vantage points.
Each of the fifty companion stories is a brand-new work of fiction, written to stand alongside a classic public-domain ghost story your students may already know, or may be meeting here for the first time. Rather than retelling the original tale, each side story imagines a minor character, a bystander, a peripheral witness, and asks what the same haunting looked like from just a few steps to the left of where the famous version was standing.
Readers will meet familiar names - Poe, Dickens, Stoker, Twain, Irving, Wilde - alongside quieter masters of the form less often assigned in the classroom: M. R. James's antiquarian unease, Sheridan Le Fanu's slow-building dread, Ambrose Bierce's spare frontier horror, and the dry wit of Saki. Every pairing includes the same four elements: the companion story itself; Teaching Notes offering historical context and content guidance; Discussion Questions for whole-class conversation or written reflection; and Classroom Activities scaled from a single class period to a multi-day project.
It is our hope that this collection helps students discover something ghost stories have always known: that the most interesting haunting is rarely the one standing center stage. It's the one glimpsed sideways, by someone who was only ever meant to be a witness.
Also from
Everhart, Clara M.
Also in
Horror
The House with Nobody in It: (A Gently Spooky Story with Interactive Die-Cut Doors and Windows for Ages 3-7)
Klassen, Jon
Hardcover
Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories: From the Creator of Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Kinney, Jeff
Hardcover
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Three Books to Chill Your Bones: All 3 Scary Stories Books with the Original Art!
Schwartz, Alvin
Hardcover
Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Three: Titan's Curse, The-Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Three
Riordan, Rick
Hardcover
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything: A Halloween Book for Kids
Williams, Linda
Paperback
Rise of the Balloon Goons: A Branches Book (the Notebook of Doom #1): Volume 1
Cummings, Troy
Paperback
Neshama: (A Middle-Grade Supernatural Journey of Family Secrets, Forgiveness and Courage for Kids Ages 9-12)
Pixley, Marcella
Hardcover
Scary Stories Paperback Box Set: The Complete 3-Book Collection with Classic Art by Stephen Gammell
Schwartz, Alvin
Paperback
In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories: Reillustrated Edition. a Halloween Book for Kids
Schwartz, Alvin
Paperback
Beneath the Bed and Other Scary Stories: An Acorn Book (Mister Shivers #1): Volume 1
Brallier, Max
Paperback
The Face in the Mirror and Other Scary Stories: An Acorn Book (Mister Shivers #5): Volume 5
Brallier, Max
Paperback