Do you want to know the truth, though? Children’s horror, even if it is scary, won’t scar your child for life. You, the parent, the adult, are more likely to get scared and scarred. Want evidence? Okay: I get more scared by children’s horror now than I did when I was a child. It’s not that the books are getting scarier – some of them are, but most of them are just following the same patterns – but that I think too much like an adult. There’s someone in the house. This could actually happen. What would I do in this situation?

That last one? Mostly nothing. Mostly I would be powerless. The type of horror that children face in books can only be dealt with by children. All the wild fantasies that are constructed around the idea of terrorising children do a few things: they help the child become more imaginative, fear being one of our most motivating experiences; they reinforce the idea that the child isn’t helpless all the time, by making the hero a child; and they allow the reader, the child, to face up to fear early on, before the onslaught of second level education, social cliques, bullies and the nastiest of the nasty teachers in the world.

What is wrong with a child being prepared for fear? Honestly, what is wrong with that? I’m not the bravest person in the world, but I survived first days at two institutions in which I knew nobody but my brother. Do you know how terrifying it is to go to a new school and not know anyone? It’s less scary than, say, Mr Mumbles tapping on your bedroom window, but it’s a much more lasting fear, and one that can put children – and even adults going into third level education – from actually getting out of bed.

Your child is a wimp? That’s because you’re shielding him from the world. Children need to grow up. Children need to read. That’s not a subjective statement: the reading levels of children, especially those in England, unfortunately, are going down over the years. Making a child afraid to read by telling them the book is too scary for them is the exact opposite message any parent should be sending out.

If a child gets scared, you console them. Parents can’t be there to stop children becoming frightened all the time. It’s literally impossible. So why would they insist on getting involved at the basic level of books? It’s counter-intuitive to the child’s development to take away new experiences from them before they have a chance to be dealt with. Instead of fictional horror keeping a child awake at night, a parent’s words of warning will keep them from reading.

It just requires a bit of tact: you don’t let your child stay up until midnight reading or watching Cujo. Actually, you don’t let your child stay up until midnight at all (or at least not on a regular basis – New Year’s Eve seems to be the only real exception on this side of the lake). Until your child gets to secondary school, you don’t let them read adult fiction at all. After that, what they read is in the hands of their English teacher.
So, back to the big question: should children read horror? Most definitely. So long as the book is appropriate for the age group – and publishers won’t print something that’s not – it can, and should, be read. All the adventure that children need in stories is present in horror, with the added adrenaline rush to make the books that little bit more exciting.

So really, what are you waiting for? Recommendations? Three obvious places to start: the Invisible Fiends series by Barry Hutchison, Darren Shan’s children’s books and, with a wider range of mild to terrifying horror, the Goosebumps books by RL Stine.

Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles

I read Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles on the train to a children’s writers’ event in London and then on the way back again, and so engrossed was I that I had to carry on whilst walking in the dark from the station to my house. It wasn’t an easy task, trying to catch the light from the sparsely arranged streetlamps and, as you will realise when you read on, it wasn’t an entirely sensible thing to do either.

Mr Mumbles is the first of what will become a series of Invisible Fiends books. And it is not for the faint-hearted. It is 250 pages of fast-paced, spine-tingling fun with a dystopian vision that is truly horrifying. Shall I tell you more?

The eponymous, Mr Mumbles, (hero, he is not) was Kyle’s childhood imaginary friend. He was a skinny little man with friendly eyes who made up for his lack of intelligible speech by a wide range of slapstick and mime. He wore a high-collared overcoat and a hat pulled down too far and he had big ears and bushy eyebrows.

But that was then. The new Mr Mumbles isn’t friendly at all. He looks like he has been through Hell and he wants to bring it back with him. Here’s a flavour:

‘The lips were grotesque: thick, bloated, and sewn tightly together with grimy lengths of thread. Each stitch crossed over its neighbour, forming a series of little Xs from one side of his mouth to the other, sealing it shut. The holes the threads passed through were black and infected, the flesh rotting away from within.’

Perhaps I should have mentioned this is not a book for the squeamish either?

Mr Mumbles blames Kyle for what has happened to him and he is out for revenge. In the chase that ensues, Kyle is helped by the mysterious and resourceful Ameena and discovers powers he never knew he had. He also finds himself thrust into The Darkest Corners, the dystopia from which Mr Mumbles has come, and where he find an even more mysterious, and, it turns out, significant, figure.

Invisible Fiends is part good old-fashioned quest. There are some great fight scenes and a real sense of danger as Mr Mumbles comes back from everything that Kyle and Ameena throw at him. Kyle’s quest, therefore is to find a way to overcome and destroy him.

This is all fairly straightforward, if exciting stuff. The horror, however, lies in what feels like the sub-plot for this novel, but is more likely the story that underpins the series as a whole. Kyle has never met his father and his mother will not tell him anything about him. Nan might, but she’s long since lost her marbles. By the end of this novel, Kyle has some idea who his father is, and that brings me back to the reason why it wasn’t a very good idea to finish this novel walking down a dark road. The denouement is truly, spine-tinglingly creepy. I’m not sure if a ten year old would get it, but it left this grown-up with some very disturbing thoughts on which to go to bed.

And maybe that’s the point. Little boys will love it: fast action, sassy dialogue, gruesome imagery and a scary ending. Just don’t read it to them at bed-time. You may have trouble getting to sleep afterwards.

Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles by Barry Hutchison, published by Harper Collins on 7 January 2010