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2025 will always be a pretty special reading year for me, because it’s the year I really threw myself into reading middle grade horror, almost daily. I had dabbled a little bit in 2024, but it all really clicked for me in the fall of 2025. Since then, I pretty much always have a middle grade horror book that I’m reading. And if not, I’m always thinking of what the next one I’ll start might be.

So it’s fitting that my last book of 2025 was a middle grade horror novel, and an amazing one at that!

I think Daka Hermon’s HIDE AND SEEKER was one of the first middle grade horror novels that I saw “breaking through” to horror Bookstagram when it came out. Prior to that, I’d say maybe the SMALL SPACES books were really the only MG horror novels that I was seeing on my feed. But yeah, the cover for HIDE AND SEEKER was so striking & took on an almost iconic status in my mind. I just remember seeing it a lot when it came out!

But I just…wasn’t interested in trying middle grade horror at the time, so the book passed me by. 

So I’m trying to catch up a little on some of the more notable middle grade horror books that I missed over the last few years, and dang, HIDE AND SEEKER was outstanding! 

The story is about a group of young friends in Tennessee. The cast of characters is comprised mostly of young Black kids, with Lyric being the lone white friend. Our main character/narrator is Justin, a boy who has had to endure more than any kid his age should. Justin’s mother died, and shortly after that, one of his close friends, Zee, went missing for over a year. 

But now Zee is finally back home, and so when we meet Justin and all his friends, they’ve gathered at Zee’s house for a welcome home party. But something is really off about Zee. His appearance. His behavior. It’s not just the trauma of having gone missing for so long. Zee is not himself.

But the kids try to solider on with the party, to try to regain some semblance of normalcy. A game of hide & seek goes terribly wrong though, and soon enough, Justin & his friends learn that Zee’s ordeal is far from over. And that one by one, every kid who played in the game of hide & seek will go missing themselves. It’s up to Justin and his friends to try and solve the supernatural mystery of the Seeker if they ever want their lives to return to normal. 

While I’m still feeling out the middle grade horror genre as a whole, I think HIDE AND SEEKER might be the first I’ve read that really fits into the “kids on bikes” subgenre, which is one of my favorite things in the world. So if you’re a fan of IT (and/or “Welcome to Derry”), SUMMER OF NIGHT, or “Stranger Things,” I think this book will definitely appeal to you. Like, give me a very tight-knit group of kids biking around their town, trying to survive a menacing, supernatural threat, and I’ll follow you anywhere.

And this is a really special, fun group of kids. Hermon takes a very grown-up approach with the cast, giving each of them their own problems & traumas. Justin and his older sister are living on their own. She’s now his sole caretaker & is working multiple jobs to make ends meet, so Justin is on his own a lot. And he’s grieving the loss of his Mom so hard, and Hermon is not shy about showing us the messy side of grief. 

This book is also funny! There’s so much great banter between all the kids, and Nia especially cracked me up. She’s that kid that just always seems to be in her own world, offering up extensive knowledge about anything & everything, whether it’s the right moment or not. Just a lot of non sequiturs with Nia that had me laughing pretty hard. 

HIDE AND SEEKER was definitely one of my favorite middle grade horror reads of 2025. Daka Hermon puts her incredible cast of characters through the wringer here, as they grapple with both real world trauma and grief, on top of a relentlessly creepy monster that literally preys on the fear of children. This would be one of the first books I’d recommend to someone who reads adult horror novels & was looking to try out a middle grade horror novel for the first time, no doubt. This was so good! Looking forward to checking out more from Daka Hermon soon!