Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

The spellbindingly creepy middle-grade debut from the bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale. `Terrifying and fun.' - R L Stine, author of Goosebumps After rescuing a book from the river, eleven-year-old Ollie discovers a creepy ghost story about the Smiling Man, a fiendish trickster who can grant any wish - for a price. Luckily, it's just a story . But when Ollie finds the characters' names carved into gravestones on a school trip to a farm, the story begins to feel terrifyingly real. And then the bus breaks down on the way home, under the watchful eyes of the scarecrows. And darkness starts to fall. `Best get moving,' the bus driver warns the schoolchildren. `At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you.' As Ollie and two new friends work to unravel a hundred-year-old mystery and save their classmates from the Smiling Man, they'll need quick thinking and even quicker feet if they're going to survive. Full of slow-burning tension, gloriously creepy writing and fantastically realised characters, this is horror at its best: a perfect read for fans of R L Stine, Jennifer Killick and Phil Hickes.
Binding: Paperback / softback