Spooky Fun for Middle Grade Readers

Halloween on the Butterfield Trail

    Published October 2025 by TCU Press

     Hardback, 123 pages, $19.99. 

When eleven-year-old twins Bird and Wiley join their father and mother on a stagecoach ride along the Butterfield Trail, they expect adventure but feel very differently about it. Bird is the kind of boy who craves it. He loves being in on the action and is always moving, always doing, and usually getting himself into trouble. He wants to sit up top in the driver's seat with his father. Wiley is just the opposite; he likes to read about adventure, but doesn't like to experience any hardships. Wiley is happy to stay in the cab, although even that is a little bouncier and dust-choked than he would like. 

An encounter with Zeb at a river crossing makes Bird think about fairness and equality. Zeb is a slave boy doing a man's work of poling the ferry across the Red River into Texas under the heavy-handed discipline of another slave. It's no surprise he wants to be free. That night, Zeb steals a horse and crosses the river in search of the $500 that will buy his freedom.

But then things get spooky. A freak storm separates the twins from the coach and they find themselves in a dark woods filled with howling wolves, flapping bats, and rattlesnakes. Spooks appear, too, including ghostly bells, glowing tombstones, headless horsemen, wailing ghostly women, and old forked-tail himself. 

In the middle of all this terror they run across Zeb and help him find a hidden treasure only to discover that it's been stolen from hardworking folks.

When they finally reconnect with the stagecoach, they find that their father's been injured and cannot drive the team. Although only a child, Bird must step up and do his father's job. But can he drive the team through a bison stampede? 

Dearen peppers the thrills with laugh-out-loud dialog and humorous turns of phrase that will keep readers smiling. I won't say it (an inside joke you will understand if you read the book), but you will be amused.

This may all sound like a rollicking, exciting story, but it will make readers think about deep and important issues. Throughout the book Bird grapples with questions like why he and Zeb can't be friends and which is the greater good: returning stolen money or using it to free a slave. And although this book takes the moral high ground, it does so in a way that's not preachy. Bird, Wiley and Zeb are left to make their own decisions, and so is the reader. 

Set in 1860, Dearen has filled this story with words and phrases that were used at the time but feel remarkably fresh to the modern reader. He does a good job of explaining things that modern readers might not understand. The closing chapter tells the history and folklore behind the story and offers suggestions for further reading. 

Spooky enough to raise the hair on a young head, yet clean and nonviolent enough to keep parents and teachers happy, this would be a great book for October read alouds in upper elementary and middle school classrooms and is a great read for ages 9-13. 

I have one hardbound copy to give away. If you'd like to receive it, leave a comment on this blog. 

About the Author

Patrick Dearen grew up in a small town in West Texas. He is the author of twenty-nine books, eighteen of which are adult fiction and ten are adult nonfiction. This is his first book for children. He is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame and has been honored by Western Fictioneers, Academy of Western Artists, San Antonio Conservation Society, West Texas Historical Association, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards . His books have been finalists for or won the Peacemaker Award, the Elmer Kelton Award, the Will Rogers Gold Medallion and WWA's Spur Award.

Jennifer Bohnhoff is a retired Middle School Language Arts and Social Studies teacher who now writes novels for middle grade through adult readers. You can read more about her books here.