Alright, here's the thing.
I fully intended on writing up a piece on some of the most disturbing books I read as a kid, all in the name of Spooky Month and this book themed week. I did some research, I looked some stuff up on the ol' Google. Then I started to remember why I blocked out my experiences of reading the books. Then the pictures showed me why I couldn't just post a bunch of them and wipe my hands of this. They were actually really disturbing.
If you were a kid in the last, say, 30 years who enjoyed reading, the odds are you came across Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. When I was a child the collected Urban Legends and folk tales were spine chilling. Now I find them to be enjoyable slices of lore that distill what unnerves us. The drawings that accompanied them were as disturbing then as they are now, to the point that just seeing pictures of them online brings me back to the discomfort and terror I felt as a child. Having read other people's recollections of their experiences and their disbelief at how the images compare with any other children's books, I am obviously just one of many who have been traumatized by this short lived series.
Written and compiled by Alvin Schwartz, the books all tell tales that are brief and to the point. There are classic Urban Legends like the Man with the Hook Hand or the Unseen Hitchhiker in the Backseat or the Roommate who was Dead All Along. There are folktales of the uncanny and the taboo - tales of songs and chants and things to ward off evil. Again, these are not the most bone-chilling reads as an adult, more capsular versions of our horror movies. As a child - I slept more than a night or two on the floor of my parents room, feeling safe in their presence.
The illustrations accompanying the collected writings are by Stephen Gammell, who has a long and celebrated career as an illustrator for children's books. Having over fifty books to his name, it's a bit of a wonder this series stands out the way it does in his career. Once you see them, though, it becomes a question of forgetting them rather than remembering them. The surreal and deformed, decaying figures are uncanny in the worst possible way. They are things of remarkable artistry, there is no question of that - they are so well made, though, that you can't help but shudder just a bit as you see some of the more...inspired...creations.
These books terrified me. If you think your kids can handle it, by all means let them have at them. But please, err on the side of safety. If you read them as a kid, conquer one of your old fears. Spooky Month!
I fully intended on writing up a piece on some of the most disturbing books I read as a kid, all in the name of Spooky Month and this book themed week. I did some research, I looked some stuff up on the ol' Google. Then I started to remember why I blocked out my experiences of reading the books. Then the pictures showed me why I couldn't just post a bunch of them and wipe my hands of this. They were actually really disturbing.
If you were a kid in the last, say, 30 years who enjoyed reading, the odds are you came across Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. When I was a child the collected Urban Legends and folk tales were spine chilling. Now I find them to be enjoyable slices of lore that distill what unnerves us. The drawings that accompanied them were as disturbing then as they are now, to the point that just seeing pictures of them online brings me back to the discomfort and terror I felt as a child. Having read other people's recollections of their experiences and their disbelief at how the images compare with any other children's books, I am obviously just one of many who have been traumatized by this short lived series.
These books terrified me. If you think your kids can handle it, by all means let them have at them. But please, err on the side of safety. If you read them as a kid, conquer one of your old fears. Spooky Month!
