Small Spaces

Katherine Arden

$19.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Puffin
09 September 2025

Horror & ghost stories, chillers (Children's&YA)

The spellbindingly creepy middle grade debut of the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden

'Don't panic. That's the first rule of survival. Never panic.'

Simple enough - until your school trip turns into a waking nightmare.

After rescuing a book from the river, eleven-year-old Ollie discovers an unsettling ghost story about the sinister Smiling Man, a fiendish trickster who'll grant any wish - for a price. Creepy, but it's just a story ...

But when Ollie finds graves bearing the characters' names on a school trip to a farm, that story begins to feel terrifyingly real. And then the bus breaks down on the way home. And darkness starts to fall. And the scarecrows are watching. But it's the bus driver who sends Ollie and her friends, Coco and Brian, scrambling into the woods- 'Best get moving,' he said, ominously. 'At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you.'

As they 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, gorgeously atmospheric writing and fantastically realised characters, this is quality-commercial fiction at its best- brilliant storytelling that feels accessible both in execution and packaging.

By: Katherine Arden
Imprint: Puffin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 200g
ISBN: 9780241795071
ISBN 10: 0241795079
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 09 September 2025
Recommended Age: From 10 to 12 years
Audience: Children/juvenile , English as a second language
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Katherine Arden is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of the Winternight Trilogy for adults and the Small Spaces Quartet for children. Her latest book for adults, The Warm Hands of Ghosts, is her eighth novel. In addition to writing, she enjoys aimless travel, growing vegetables and running wild through the woods with her dog, Moose. She lives in Vermont, USA.