For children’s author Paula LaRue, writing is all about reading.

The mission of the retired educator and Milford resident is to “get kids reading and keep them reading.”

Fans enjoying LaRue’s “Scary Shivers” series of adventure mysteries may consider it a mission accomplished. Three books have been published and a fourth is scheduled for release in 2025.

One installment — “The Weeping House” — won first place for Juvenile Mystery and Juvenile Fantasy & Magic at the 2024 national BookFest Awards.

The latest book — “The Legend of the Serpent Witch” — was released just ahead of Halloween.

Written for middle school children, LaRue’s books follow the adventures of Ollie and two friends who encounter an array of creatures, including ghosts, witches, snakes, vampires, thieves and scary creatures. Throughout, the friends support each other to face and conquer their fears and overcome terrifying surprises.

LaRue said she employs a fast-paced style similar to novelist R.L. Stine, author of the best-selling “Goosebumps” novel series. Stine’s work has spawned video games and two feature films, and he has been described as the “Stephen King” of children’s literature.

LaRue — who writes under the pen name F.P. LaRue — said her works reflect her childhood passion for reading and her long-held fascination with scary and mysterious horror tales and movies.

“I’ve always enjoyed spooky things,” she said. Among her favorites is “Dark Shadows,” a gothic fantasy popular on television in the 1960s and into the ‘70s, and in a 2012 movie directed by Tim Burton, famous for fantasy films and gothic horror.

“I like all that goes with ghosts and mummies, even as an adult. I still do. We are all kids at heart.”

Growing up in Trenton, LaRue said her parents emphasized reading. As a child, LaRue was a familiar face at the Trenton Veterans Memorial Library. Raised in a family of four children, her father was a maintenance staffer at McLouth Steel Corp. and her mother was a kitchen worker at Trenton’s Riverside Hospital. LaRue graduated from Trenton High School in 1975.

“We were a family of readers,” she said. “My parents always encouraged me to read and that it was important. Kids watch what their parents do and what they value.”

A criminal justice graduate of Eastern Michigan University with a master’s degree in security administration from the University of Detroit, she specialized in security and safety methods and techniques. More recently, she retired as dean of academic affairs at ITT Technical Institute near Flint.After retiring several years ago, she said, her husband — a digital and technology specialist — “bought an app during COVID” to introduce her to writing as a pastime.

“I enjoyed it and found it easy to follow and do,” she said.

Her foray into fiction was not her first into writing, however. Previously, she drew upon her experience in security to write a nonfiction book (“Stalking: Surviving the Hidden Terror”) about methods for handling and avoiding stalking and stalkers.

In recent years, her interest in childhood reading also produced an advisory article, “Ten Tips to Get Children Reading More.” Among those:

• Create a dedicated reading space

• Make family visits to libraries and bookstores

• Set and example, be positive and patient

• Have them write their own stories

Find more at fplarue.com.

The 10 tips and more about LaRue’s children’s novels — “The Weeping House,” “The Legend of the Serpent Witch” and “The Curse of Shadow Park” — are available at fplarue.com.