Speaking Volumes | Check out your Manatee library for Halloween reads and classic films

October is the perfect month for spooky, scary books, but sometimes we need laughs mixed in to break up the tension. The following books are a beautifully weird mix of horror and humor that will have you popping out of your seat with jump scares as well as guffaws.

Adults nostalgic for a simpler time of Scooby Doo—when monsters turned out to be some harmless guy in a hammy mask—will chuckle when reading “Meddling Kids,” by Edgar Cantero. The members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club—whose members resemble Scooby’s pals—have retired their mystery-solving ways years ago but reunite for one last monster reveal.

If you want to get Elton John stuck in your head while you read, pick up a copy of “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer,” by Lish McBride. After a run-in with a shady character, college drop-out Sam learns he has the power to raise the dead. The shady character turns out to be another necromancer who hopes to profit from Sam’s undead abilities, and hilarity ensues as Sam and his pop-culture-spewing friends try to save the day. This book is the first in a series of dark gut-busters.

In “Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits” by David Wong, the horror gets even more ridiculous. After Zoey’s estranged father dies mysteriously, she moves to the big city to discover he was the founder of an underground group whose mission is to broker peace between vigilante heroes and wannabe supervillains. Now it’s up to her to save the city from a real bad guy.

If you need less silly and more scary in your novel, try David Koepp’s “Cold Storage.” On a routine investigation, a bioterror government agent discovers a disturbing organism that spells doom for humanity. He works with two unsuspecting heroes—an ex-con and a single mom—to put the organization in the ground for good.

Fans of dark comedy and dark crime thrillers will get entangled in “Death in Her Hands,” by Ottessa Moshfegh. While walking her dog in the woods, a recently widowed woman finds a handwritten note that states “Here is her dead body,” but there is no body or other clues. The woman is disturbed, but determined to unravel the mystery, even if it unravels herself as well.

If you’re looking for movies, we have plenty of spine-chillers to whet your appetite. We have the classic Universal horror films, like “Dracula”, “Frankenstein” (both 1931), “The Mummy” (1932), to newer spookers such as the 2010 remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “The Conjuring” (2013).

For the little ones, we have “Hotel Transylvania”, the classic “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” both on DVD, and “Dem Bones,” a fun adaptation of the song ”Dem Bones,” which uses repetitive rhyming to inspire children to join in and shake along, is available both in print and through Hoopla, one of our electronic resources.

Your library is online: www.mymanatee.org/library. Free masks are available at all library locations.

Manatee Libraries are fine free! Please note that lost/damaged fees still apply.

Stephanie Katz is the Island children’s librarian for the Manatee Library system.