Friday, October 31, 2008

Scary Stories

Happy Halloween!

What was the scariest story you ever read when you were a kid? Was it a chapter book, short story, or picture book? Give us the title and author and tell us just what creeped you out so much.

Mine was The Ghost in the Swing by Jill Patton Smith. I read a lot of spooky stuff--John Bellairs and Zilpha Keatley Snyder were two of my fave authors--but this one got me so bad, that after a few chapters I would only read it if I were in the same room as my mom.

This girl goes to visit her aunt and discovers a ghost in the house. She tries to discover where the ghost came from. One night she hears flute music up in the attic, and heads up the attic stairs...

That's as far as I got! I never finished it! I could never convince myself to go through the attic door.

Now it's 200 bucks on Amazon. I may never find out the ending! :)

4 comments:

Hannah said...

I used to read a collection of stories called "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" by Alvin Schwartz. They were very short tales of different haunting events and situations that were very creepy, but always fun to read. It might involve a ghost who thought they were still alive or a spider egg sack that hatched out of a girl's cheek! The writer, though, found the best way to make the stories appropriate for the younger crowd, which I've always found amazing. Happy Halloween!

Elisabeth said...

It has to be "The Dollhouse Murders" by Betty Ren Wright. The dolls moved around at night by themselves and the characters have to solve a murder mystery. Ahhh! Still creepy. A recent children's book that I find really scary as an adult, is Neil Gaiman's "Coraline". I just found out that it is been made into a stop action animated movie coming out next year. I can't wait!

MelissaZD said...

I read Dollhouse Murders as an adult and was seriously disturbed!

Coraline's awesome. Did you know it's also out as a Graphic Novel?

Elisabeth said...

I did see that "Coraline" is a GN now, and skimmed it. One of these days I'm going to force myself to read a GN...it's just a genre I have trouble getting into. I think it's great that they have such a strong audience though! :)