Children's Book World

About Laura Parnum

Laura Parnum writes stories that blend humor and heart with a touch of horror. When she’s not writing, she’s editing other people’s stories and helping out at the local elementary school library. She currently serves as Co-Regional Advisor for the Eastern Pennsylvania region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Laura lives with her family in Philadelphia. They have a turtle that bites and a snake that doesn’t.

Her first novel, Peril at Price Manor, won the Pennsylvania Library Association’s 2024 Carolyn W. Field Award for the best book for young people by a Pennsylvania author or illustrator. Her second novel, The Haunting of Bellington Cottage, is due to release in summer 2025.

About The Haunting of Bellington Cottage

From the author of Peril at Price Manor comes a new spooky and bighearted stand-alone novel about two girls trying to figure out if they’re still friends who discover their vacation rental home is haunted.

It was the perfect winter break getaway . . . until the ghost showed up.

The last time Iris’s and Violet’s families went on a trip together, the girls turned their rental home into an epic haunted house—and Iris has brought all her spookiest supplies to the cottage they’re calling home for the next week, ready to re-create the magic they’d shared. But in the years since, Vee (don’t call her Violet) has become closed off and short-tempered and wants nothing to do with anyone, especially not her mom’s new boyfriend.

Vee’s bad mood feels inescapable in the cottage. And soon strange things are happening that make it seem like the house itself is angry, too—doors are slamming, rooms that were perfectly neat a second ago are suddenly a disaster, and Iris hears pacing footsteps long after everyone’s gone to sleep. Iris and Vee soon discover that the cottage has a secret history and that there’s no need to stage a haunted house after all . . . because they’re already in one.

About Peril at Price Manor

Peril at Price Manor is a fun middle grade novel with a touch of horror and a lot of humor, perfect for kids breaking into the horror genre

Fans of Ghost Squad will love this lightly scary creature feature standalone novel about a tween aspiring horror movie actress who pairs up with the twin children of her favorite director to defeat zombifying octopus-like creatures!

Halle dreams of becoming a scream queen. She practices her loudest scream every day and has learned a lot from studying the horror movies of her favorite director, Maximus Price. Maximus lives just outside town, and when the chance to go to his home arises, Halle grabs it with both hands. She doesn’t realize that real life horrors await her at Price Manor.

Paisley and Argyle, Maximus’s twin children, think that the creepy, squid-like creatures that have attached themselves to the faces of the manor’s staff, putting them in a zombie-like stupor, are just another one of their prankster dad’s tricks. When Halle arrives and is attacked by one of the creatures, she meets the twins and assures them that this is no joke. The three kids will have to work together using all of their unusual talents to defeat the monsters—and maybe even save the world.

Blending quirky humor and poignant heart with delightfully creepy monsters, this debut middle grade novel is a perfect entry point for young readers to the horror genre.