Haunted Kids

by Allan Zullo

Many kids claim to have seen ghosts in all sorts of places—cemeteries, bedrooms, attics, schools, roadways, forests, caves. Often, experts were called in to investigate these apparent hauntings, and most of the time these so-called experts walked away baffled. The only thing that everyone could agree on was that something very weird had happened, something that could never be fully explained.

This first book in Allan Zullo’s popular Haunted Kids series is a collection of 11 creepy tales inspired by real-life cases taken from the files of noted ghost hunters. Do ghosts really exist? Well, you’ll have to decide that for yourself after listening to:
Disc 1
The Devil’s Garden
Grave Consequences
The Headless Trainman
The Secret of Room 333
The Home Wrecker
Disc 2
The Ghost of Slow Sam
The Baby-Sitting Ghost
The Scaredy Cats
The Thing in the Attic
The Warning
The Glowing Ball of Death

So, Turn Out the Lights, Turn up the Volume, and Turn Loose the Terror!

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Ghosts, Childrens, Nonfiction, Middle Grade, Juvenile

Audio CD

Published September 20, 2008

About the author

Allan Zullo is an American non-fiction writer. He is the author or co-author of more than eighty paperbacks for adults and children.

A native of Rockford, Illinois, Zullo graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1969 with a degree in journalism. His books include The Baseball Hall of Shame and Baseball Confidential (both co-written with Bruce Nash), A Boomer's Guide to Grandparenting (co-written with his wife Kathryn), and the Haunted Kids series. Zullo has also written articles for The National Enquirer, The Christian Science Monitor, Ladies Home Journal, and The Palm Beach Post. His syndicated comic strip "The Ghost Story Club" ran in American newspapers from 1995 to 1998.

Zullo currently lives in Fairview, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Julie]

I love ghost stories. I'm always game for any collection of spooky tales. I often turn to middle-grade lightly scary stories as palate cleansers between heavier adult fiction that I enjoy reading. This book is a collection of 11 allegedly true strange occurrences that happened to kids. From cats who return from the dead to mysterious glowing orbs, these stories are eerie and entertaining.

This book is age appropriate. The stories are lightly creepy but nothing over-the-top. Most middle-grade age kids would enjoy this book. It might be a bit too much for kids younger than 8 just because it talks about death, scary things at night, dangerous situations, etc.

Stories included are:

The Devil's Garden
Grave Consequences
The Headless Trainman
The Secret of Room 333
The Home Wrecker
The Ghost of Slow Sam
The Baby-Sitting Ghost
The Scardey Cats
The Thing in the Attic
The Warning
The Glowing Ball of Death

At 91 pages, this is an entertaining quick read. The stories would be fun to read out loud as well. Might be great ghost story entertainment for a stormy night, or during a sleepover or camping trip. This might be a great book to use in a classroom setting as a writing prompt for students to write their own spooky tale.

Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo have written other similar books including Totally Haunted Kids and Spooky Kids: Strange But True Tales. I enjoyed this book. I will definitely be looking at more of their work.

[Andrew ✝️]

This is the first book by Allan Zullo that I've ever read. I'm a cautious skeptic when it comes to paranormal stories. I believe ghosts are/can be real, but I'm also something of a pragmatist about it. The full title of this book is 'Haunted Kids: True Ghost Stories,' and yet the only thing I could find online about anything claimed in this book was about The Haunted Trainman. When I tried to do searches about the rest of the stories, I either kept getting a link about the audiobook version of this, or really random results, like random people and random phone number lookups. Without any proof, I'd say that the stories that aren't 'The Scaredy Cats,' 'The Homewrecker,' and 'Grave Consequences' might be true. Otherwise, this was a fascinating read. 3 stars.

[Rebecca Hill]

These were some fun little ghost stories. Nothing to scary. Great read!

[Bookworm]

I've read this book back when I was a 7th grader and I didn't remember anything from it except for the stories' titles. Anyway, it was fun reading it again with my younger cousin and sister. I'd say the stories in this book are kind of cool; they all seemed to me as a teenager good attempt of telling ghost stories, but I didn't really think of them as "true ghost stories" as what the book claims they are. I don't see any reason of being scared of ghosts, I think it would be mild cool if I ever met a ghost. What I liked in those short ghost stories is that most of them were about good ghosts who helped the story characters in someway, and if there were no good ghosts in the story there'd still be a simple good moral from it.

[Cindy]

Overall it was a decent book...some was better than others. Let's break it down
The Devil's Garden- I LOVED THIS ONE
Grace Consequences- meh overdone
The Headless Trainman- adorable
The Secret Room 333- what I was expecting of the book (therefore great)
The Home wrecker - Ouija board...just don't
The Ghost of Slow Sam - Bore
The Baby-sitting Ghost - so cute
The Scaredy Cats- not my thing but I guess not bad
The Thing in the Attic - wouldn't be a scary story book without one of these
The Warning - creepy (therefore good)
The Glowing Ball of Death - Was this a scary story or a romance?

[Sabrina Rutter]

I read many of the stories in this book to the kids in October. The stories were a little to scary for them so we stopped reading it. My son started to think that ghosts were in his room and my daughter didn't want to go to sleep with her light off.
Not recomended for a first and third grader!

[Sarasue29]

Fun read, might be a little too scary for some kids.

[Seo Thị]

4.5 ( because I like ghost stories )

[Olivia Meek]

I love haunting stories no matter the type. These stories were interesting and left me wondering more about each one.

[Dianne schettl]

spinetingling, and unique loved this book

[M. Olivares]

i read this like twice a day when i was in fifth grade and had no friends and this was the only book in the library that gave me the heebie jeebies.

[Perry Mac4]

A frightening trip down memory lane. The book is short and sweet and packs a heckuva punch for the creepy, ghostly, and mysterious.
A great, quick read for all ages.

[Rhonda]

Well, this is for kids but let me tell you there were a couple of stories that really freaked me out.
I listened to this on audiobook and John Ratzenbergerwas the narrator for this (he was Cliff on Cheers). He does not do female voices very well and for the most part his voice kind of put me on edge a little.
I think if kids like this sort of thing then it is a good thing to listen too, there are 11 stories in all and most of them are pretty lame.
I enjoyed this because it was a short audio book.

[Alex]

One of my favorites.I enjoy reading it. A lot of these stories are really creepy and kind of scary, but I just don't put it down. Its not very long, an easy read. A couple of my favorite stories in this book are The Devil's Garden, which has to do with the ghost of a little girl who haunts two kids, and The Secret of Room 333, where a boy named Adam who needs in help in math is tutored by the ghost of a teacher at his Catholic school. I wish a ghost would help me with math *sigh*.

[Amanda]

Good stories.

I liked these books. I like Allan Zullo and I really like the stories in these books. I think all younger kids (Upper elementary, early middle school) These books are quick reads and quite intresting. (Even if the stories are exagerrated.) So if you like short ghost stoires read these books.

[Cheyenne]

THIS BOOK HAS 7 SCARY STORIES IN IT. THEY HAVE LOTS OF TALES THAT ARE TRUE. PPLE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK AT NIGHT IT WILL MAKE IT MORE SCARIER TRAIN THE MORNING. THE AUTHOR I REALLY DONT KNOE ANY THING BOUT HIM OR HER.

[Harry.yang]

...I think that you should try to read this book beacuse this book will give you shivers and chills...I think...man..

[Cws]

JM-Zul

[Soomble]

This book may change your life!!!!!!!! haaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa! P.S: This book may keep you reading long past bedtime !!!!!!!!!!!!!.

[Marie]

Supposed to be true stories. Some of them beautiful, other really creepy. Ideal stories to tell/listen to at Halloween, not alone but with friend or family, to get in a Halloween mood.

[Kun Bae]

In the cover it says true but I don't think it's true

[Noelle Walsh]

I really enjoyed reading this. It was and is fun to read. This is one of the first books I end up recommending! Worth reading, this book is.

[Donna]

This is my fear level for ghost stories!! LOL when the narrator John Ratzenberger mentioned "Cheers".

[Angel Sandoval]

The book was about kids that were kids and haunt everyone. I like the book cause the ghost are kids. I would recommend this book to people who like real ghost stories

[Lichelle]

It is a good book and it has many different stories in it which keeps my attention , and each story kinda ends in a surprise/mystery.

[Stacey]

even for a kids book this had some great stories. It was very well written and entertaining.

[Mariah]

The writing of this book is scarier than the stories themselves.