Scary Stories--Halloween 2013

Perhaps it's the gloomy rainy weather.  Or it might be the combination of heavy mist and smoke from burning leaves hanging in the air.  My furry friend is restless which does not bode well for the night ahead; her senses more keenly aware than mine.  It's October 31, 2013.

Today, since the atmosphere is charged with uncertainty and general spookiness, I'm going to my personal bookshelves, stacked with more than sixty Halloween books, books filled with fun and frights to delight every age.  These ten story collections contain some of the best shiver-inducing stories I've had the pleasure of sharing over the years.  Get cozy, make sure all the doors and windows are locked and turn off the lights.


The Haunting of America: Ghost Stories from Our Past by Jean Anderson with illustrations by Eric von Schmidt (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973)
Twenty-four stories told again and again across our United States are gathered here by Jean Anderson for all to enjoy.  Of these, my favorite is The Harp Player of Pitcher's Point.  As the story goes, a place along the Mississippi Gulf Coast is haunted.  A ship's captain and his first mate, overcome by greed commit a horrible deed.  A lady with a harp does not forget; her music heard to this day.

A Taste For Quiet and Other Disquieting Tales by Judith Gorog, illustrations by Jeanne Titherington (Philomel Books, 1982) 

These twelve tales will unsettle you in most unexpected ways; not necessarily frightening but causing you to pause and reflect.  One of my favorites for any storytelling session, not only at Halloween, is Those Three Wishes.  Melinda Alice, known as Melinda Malice by her classmates, is clever and cruel. On a walk to school one morning, she nearly crushes a snail on the sidewalk deliberately.  What stops her is a promise of three wishes from this snail, a talking snail.  You really should be careful for what you wish.

No Swimming In Dark Pond and Other Chilling Tales by Judith Gorog (Philomel Books, 1987)
In this collection of thirteen, Judith Gorog heightens the fear factor.  The title story, No Swimming In Dark Pond, describes Matilda who would rather have the pond all to herself, scaring people when they are swimming.  Now all alone at the pond, she is satisfied her plan worked, until one day when she goes swimming.

 Gorog's version of Hookman is one of the scariest I have ever read. A drive down a deserted dirt road to get a forgotten suitcase ends any plans for a happy honeymoon.

Dr. Egger's Favorite Dog tells the tale of a doctor who does not have a great affection for dogs. She comes to realize they will protect those they love, even if they are no longer among the living.

When the Lights Go Out: 20 Scary Tales To Tell by Margaret Read MacDonald with illustrations by Roxane Murphy (The H. W. Wilson Company, 1988)

Margaret Read MacDonald, known for her collections of stories, divides this group into Not Too Scary, Scary In The Dark, Gross Stuff, Jump Tales, Tales To Act Out and Tales To Draw Or Stir Up.  A perennial favorite any time of the year is The Tale of a Black Cat.  This drawing story finds Tommy and his friend Sally facing something more than a new house.  For storytellers at any stage in their storytelling, this is a fantastic resource.

Things That Go Bump in the Night: a collection of original stories edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg (Harper & Row Publishers, 1989)
Eighteen stories by eighteen authors, many well-known in the field of children's literature are collected in this title.
Duffy's Jacket (Bruce Coville) tells the tale of a very forgetful boy, prone to leaving and losing his personal items.  One evening, after having left his jacket in the woods, he and his cousins are left alone in the cabin as their moms head into town.  A scratching sound can only mean one thing.  Someone, something, really was following them in the woods earlier.
Meech tries his best, but whatever he does old Mrs. Foss is never satisfied.  Leaves (Mary K. Whittington) tells of his raking her leaves for years.  You would think now that she's dead, he is done with this yearly job.  Mrs. Foss and her trees will have their way.
My favorite in this volume, by far, is The Babysitter (Jane Yolen).  It's the best babysitter story ever written in my opinion.  Hilary really does not like babysitting for the boys at the Mitchell's house.  Their stories of "Them" give her the shivers as does the ritual the boys insist on doing as they go down the hall to their bedroom.  The night before Halloween will be one Hilary remembers because of an intruder and "Them".  (Getting goosebumps just writing this.)

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack with illustrations by Brian Pinkney (Scholastic, 1992)(Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Award)
Of these ten original stories, capturing the history of the African American storytelling tradition, my favorite is The Legend of Pin Oak.  A plantation owner harbors a hatred for one of the male slaves, now married with a son.  A sale takes an unexpected twist at the edge of cliffs overlooking the river falls.  Three birds, a hidden cave and an underground railroad conductor add to the mystery.





The Ghost & I: Scary Stories For Participatory Telling edited by Jennifer Justice (Owl Moon Press, 1992)
I have used this book so much it is literally falling apart.  It is divided into three sections for ages 5-8, ages 9-11 and ages 12 and up.
The Graveyard Voice (Betty Lehrman) in the first section is the kind of story engaging readers right until the final words.  Groans and giggles will quickly follow.  An ordinary man with an ordinary family lives next to a graveyard.  One Halloween everything changes to the extraordinary.  The Witch Who 'Cracked Up' (Flora Joy) is a delightful tangram story.  Students can follow along using their own tangrams.
In section two Uncle Bill's Dream (Robin Moore) goes from haunting to hilarious.  A dream, a witch, a donkey and it's droppings make for an interesting combination.  It's grossness is sure to bring on the laughs.
From section three, The Woman in Grey (Shelia Dailey) and The Vampire Skeleton (Joseph Bruchac) are excellent.  In the first we find ourselves in a shopkeeper's market. He is waiting on a sad-eyed customer all dressed in grey.  Each time she comes to the store she leaves with a bottle of milk. No words are spoken.  No money changes hands. What is her secret?
A Native American woman, her husband and child are walking through the woods to another village in the second tale.  As night falls the husband, despite his wife's words of warning, urges them to stay in a hut in the woods.  What lurks inside the hut?  Who will survive?




Scary Story Reader: Forty-One of the Scariest Stories for Sleepovers, Campfires, Car & Bus Trips--Even for First Dates collected by Richard and Judy Dockrey Young, introduction by Jan Harold Brunvand, illustrations by Wendell E. Hall (August House Publishers, Inc., 1993)
With chapter headings like The Classic Urban Legends, The Urban Runners-Up, A Terror Tour of Our Nation, Jump!, Laugh Yourself to Death, and Our Favorite Horror Tales, there is something for everyone in this collection.  The one most requested, the one promoting the most discussion after the telling, is The Call from the Grave.  An old farm in the country is home to a little girl, her parents and grandfather.  When he dies her sadness is only lessened with the comfort of being able to see his grave from her home in the nearby cemetery.  A late babysitter, a terrifying storm and an unexpected phone call, give the girl sure knowledge that love transcends even death. 

Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales by Roberta Simpson Brown (August House Publishers, Inc., 1993)

All of the stories written by Roberta Simpson Brown are chilling and not for the faint of heart.  Many take place in familiar places.  One which I have used with older students, upper middle and high school, is The Whittler.  It begins with a group of boys camping.  Their leader Arnold Fremont has just finished telling a scary story.  They beg him for one more, The Whittler.  Sometimes what we fear the most should not be the ghost.  Sometimes what we should fear is among us.  (This story is a ten on the creepy scale.)





Great Ghost Stories selected and illustrated by Barry Moser (Books of Wonder, William Morrow and Company, 1998)
These thirteen stories fall under the classic category; stories like The Monkey's Paw (W. W. Jacobs), How It Happened (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) or Dead Aaron (retold by James Haskins).  By far the most haunting is Polly Vaughn retold by Barry Moser.  I would recommend this for older audiences.  Polly and Jimmy, sweethearts for most of their lives, are getting married soon.  Both their families live in cabins in the mountains, their fathers working in the coal mines.  Hunting is an important part of becoming a man in the mountains.  Jimmy, after his first kill at the age of ten, has no desire to do it ever again.  On his way to meet Polly one afternoon, his mother calls him back, urging him to carry his gun.  They need food.  A heartbreaking tragedy occurs, lives will be lost and a voice from the grave is not heeded.  (Even reading this story again today, I find it unforgettable.  Even beyond the enjoyment factor, there is much to discuss.)

A Little Bit of Mystery, A Little Bit of Magic and a Whole Lot of Life

When beginning a new book, there's something particularly attractive about being introduced to a character, within the first two pages (a prologue), who among other things, is a teller of tales.  When the story they tell is so compelling a listener becomes fearful, readers, like that listener, might be prone to the same thoughts as one of the main characters.

Sensing my fear, Joe would say, "It's only a story, Naomi, only a story." He suggested that I say to myself, "I'm not in the story, I'm not in the story"--a refrain I could repeat so that I would feel less anxious.
And so each time the poor man would reach into the donkey's ears, I would tell myself, I'm not in the story, I'm not in the story, but it didn't help because a story was only interesting if I was in the story.

And that, as is said, is the crux of the matter.

For a book to be good, so good the characters, events, setting, and how they are shaped and pieced together into a powerful whole stays with a reader, the whole must bring you into the story.  An author who has consistently perfected this art is Sharon Creech.  Creech was the recipient of the Newbery Award in 1995 for Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Honor in 2001 for The Wanderer and the 2002 Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler. 

I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC of The Great Unexpected which is scheduled to be released on September 4, 2012.  With every turn of page you fall more deeply under the spell of Creech's writing.  Before you know it, you are living with the people making their home in a town named Blackbird Tree.

When she was only three Naomi Deane, a foster child, began living with Joe and Nula; her father having died trying to save her from a vicious dog attack.  A mere two days after she was born her mother had died.  Naomi's best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, has been living with the Cupwrights as a foster child for the past two years.

All is oddly normal in their community; the gossipy gatherings at Tebop's General Store, the Dimmenses and the dogs on Black Dog Night Hill, Witch Wiggins who may or may not have out-of-this-world powers, Crazy Cora who abhors visitors of any kind, Mrs. Mudkin from the Ladies Society at church spreading goodwill, Mr. Canner living on memories and one-armed Mr. Farley lost in the past.  All this sense of sameness changes when a body falls out of a tree on top of Naomi and the Dingle Dangle man comes to this particular spot in the universe.  Yes, indeed, things are not at all what they appear to be.

On the other side of the ocean two women, Mrs. Kavanagh and Miss Pilpenny are plotting a revenge and enjoying a healthy dose of murder each night.  The long arm of these two will be felt in a great unexpected way.  How fairy circles, rooks in twos, a love of dogs, ghosts, and a crooked bridge all meld with these delightfully, distinctive people toward the miraculous, marvelous conclusion will have you wondering if you should clap your hands and dance, sigh and quietly smile or as a single tear rolls down your cheek you should begin to read it all over again.

As I was reading The Great Unexpected I continually held this picture in my mind of Sharon Creech sitting at a table with pieces of a puzzle spread before her.  All these pieces were her creation; phrases that roll off your tongue, lines of language bringing forth an instant sense of place or detailed dialogue or thoughts giving insight into the core of a character's personality.  She with the practiced hand of a master having honed her gift moving them, fitting all the pieces into place.  And we, lucky readers every one, getting to enjoy and savor the beauty of this book.

Here are some samples of her writing from this title.

Joe, my guardian and a man of few words, once said about Lizzie, "That girl could talk the ears off a cornfield."

A tangle of twine on Joe's workbench reminded me of a time when I was maybe five or six and had taken a ball of twine and wound it all through the chicken yard, so the chickens would have little "rooms" of their own, and Nula came out in the near dark and tripped over the twine rooms and broke her wrist when she fell.
She didn't yell.  She didn't scold. All she said to me was, "Rooms for chickens?"

Both Nula and I were stunned into silence.
"I just cannot believe this, Naomi.  It's like--it's like--the universe spun us together on purpose."
"Yes," Nula said quietly, "It does seem that way, doesn't it?"

When Sharon Creech writes, threads of people's lives are woven together with her words; words speaking of family, friendship, love and forgiveness.  In The Great Unexpected time and distance can be bridged.  In The Great Unexpected readers are surrounded by story, an unforgettable story filled with magical moments. 

Thank you Sharon Creech for this book.  This view from the moon is splendid. Lar-de-dar

Links embedded in her name will take you to her website and blog.

Dare To Be Scared...

There is a special kind of tension, almost a sense of urgency, in a good ghost story; the wanting to know but being slightly afraid to know, for characters and for readers.  Whether friendly, helpful even, or malevolent, with deadly intent, the ghosts, in the best of this kind of tale, are so believable you will be looking over your shoulder, wondering if the play of light making a shadow is not really something else.  What makes it even more disturbing is if only certain people can see these visions; causing them to doubt their sanity.

When authors base a haunted story on a place already steeped in the tradition of storytelling, sometimes the line between fiction and truth blurs beautifully as in Cornelia Funke's newest title, Ghost Knight (Little, Brown and Company).  After a visit to Salisbury, England and the Cathedral School there, an idea began in Funke's fertile fantastic mind.

I was eleven when my mother sent me to boarding school in Salisbury.  Yes, granted, she did have tears in her eyes as she brought me to the station.  But she still put me on that train.

Jon Whitcroft is feeling adrift for more reasons than being sent to boarding school.

Since the time of his father's death when he was four, he has had a solid place in the family hierarchy.  When The Beard, a new man, comes into his mother's life his sisters and even the dog welcome him with open arms.  Now removed from his home, after numerous failed attempts to rid them of this intruder, Jon is miserable.  But that misery is surpassed by extreme fear when, on his sixth night at school, he looks out his bedroom window to see three gruesome ghosts who clearly have come for him.

Trying to believe his imagination has gone wild, his roommates, Stu and Angus, could not see the ghosts, Jon almost has himself convinced until the next evening.  When they appear the number of ghostly riders has increased by one, the leader.  Jon makes a fool of himself in front of a group of students and an instructor. 

To his surprise the next day a local girl, Ella Littlejohn, attending the school approaches him believing he can see the ghosts because she can too. Her grandmother, thought by some to be a witch, conducts ghost tours in the area for tourists.  The toad-loving, spunky granny reveals the nature of Jon's persistent phantoms advising him to get as far away from Salisbury as possible.

Lord Stourton was hanged for murder and buried with four of his servants; one of the most ghastly murders of the day (1556), that of William Hartgill and his son, John. Hartgill is Jon's mother's maiden name.  Leaving Ella and her grandmother, Jon wondering if he will live to see another day, is stopped by Ella.  She has a plan.

Jon and Ella call forth the ghost of a dead knight buried in the Salisbury Cathedral, William Longspee, asking for his assistance.  But even assistance freely given, a lifetime bond created, can come at a price.  What has been stolen must be found; trusting the beings of the hereafter can be  precarious at best.

Escalating events double the life and death scenario with help coming from the unlikeliest of sources.  Demon hounds, ghost possession, a peeler, gatherings in cemeteries and battles among the living and the dead race readers along page after page.  Friendships that even death can't break are forged and opinions shift as all the characters converge toward a heart-pounding and heartwarming conclusion.

Cornelia Funke's writing has never been better; creating a sense of time, place and realistic characters, dead or alive. It's a given that she has penned an extraordinary adventure laced with ghosts, good, bad and somewhere in-between, but this is also a story of an eleven-year-old boy whose world has gone topsy-turvy.  How he navigates through this narrative, his family and new friends, is depicted with clever thoughts and dialogue.

Here are a couple of examples.

Four ghosts and a witch's granddaughter.  Can't get crazier than that, I thought.  But of course I was wrong about that as well.

The air behind the heavy doors was so chilly it made me shiver, and the twilight between the gray walls wrapped itself around me like a protective blanket.

Truth and lies, love and hate, then and now all blend flawlessly in Ghost Knight written by the gifted Cornelia Funke.  An author's note explains her visit to Salisbury and how this book began. Terms and noteworthy persons, not familiar to readers, are explained in a glossary.  Black and white drawings by Andrea Offermann compliment the story contributing to the atmosphere.

At the Scholastic Stacks website is an interview with Cornelia Funke and more information about other titles she has written.  The publisher, Little, Brown and Company,  of this title has posted the first three chapters.  I guarantee you will be hooked. 

Listen...Can You Hear?

Early this past Sunday morning, awake again at 1:30 a.m., I closed the covers of a book I could not believe was over.  The well-wrought characters placed in harrowing, unusual and mysterious circumstances bound this reader to them as only the best of stories can.  A novel inspired by The Secret Garden, The Humming Room (Feiwel and Friends), by Ellen Potter will undoubtedly bring new readers to the earlier title and have others going back for a second reading but on its own--brilliant.

Let's begin at the beginning.

There are no road signs to mark the tiny village of Limpette.  It lies between two towns that you have never heard of.  If you pass Ostrander's goat farm, you've gone too far.

We won't stay long in Limpette.  There's not much of anything here for us, except the girl. And the girl was not much of anything either, not back then.  Her name was Roo Fenshaw and she was too small for her age.

It's a good thing Roo is small for her age; giving her the ability to stay hidden in the smallest of places.  In the silent space beneath her trailer house she listens to the policemen examining the murder scene, overhears the conversation with the neighbor and discovers she is to be taken to live with an uncle she did not know she had, her father's brother.  Tragedy's heavy hand is scooping up twelve-year-old Roo.

Efficient Ms. Valentine whisks Roo away to Cough Rock Island, one of many such islands in the St. Lawrence River.  Her uncle, Emmett Fenshaw, a private, eccentric man, has purchased an abandoned children's hospital used to treat those with tuberculosis, as his home.  Within hours of her arrival the mysteries of which no one speaks, a strange humming and piercing screams, fill the air.

No nonsense but sympathetic Violet, an islander working for Roo's uncle, speaks to her of the legendary Yellow Girl, a ghost, and the Faigne, looking human but not quite, a creature of the water.  Before too long Mrs. Wixton, her newly acquired tutor attempts to suffocate Roo's new sense of belonging and freedom on the island.  Hiding from Mrs. Wixton within her secret cave by the river, she meets Jack, who eerily resembles the Faigne in appearance and in his skills on and around the waterway.

Further explorations along silent, twisting hallways, up and down staircases, through doorways rarely used and a sudden plunge along the death chute, lead Roo to discover she has a cousin, Phillip, and yes, there is a garden, a enclosed, glass-domed garden.  Lack of all life permeates every nook and cranny of the space, the very air itself.  Yet it calls to Roo; calling for her help.

So many questions without answers are centered on the garden.  Initially it draws Roo and Jack together working daily to bring forth any form of greenness despite both sensing, seeing, a vague shadowy form by a large boulder.  Within time Phillip, Violet, Ms. Valentine and eventually Emmett Fenshaw are drawn by circumstances into its confines.

Atmosphere thick with foreboding generated by her father's murder, the island's rocky isolation, the mansion whose empty rooms echo with lives lost, the sudden mysterious death of Ana, her uncle's wife and Phillip's mother, superstitions of the island's natives and the enigma of Jack drives the storyline forward.  Plot details tightly interwoven create a seamless fictional fabric patterned with timeless life-defining qualities, resilience, love, family, friendship, and loyalty.  Rich characterizations, primary and secondary, revealed by dialogue shine.

Squinting through the curtain of rain, she watched the shadowy form on the roof.  Suddenly, the wind changed directions, as though someone had summoned it.  It drove into her face so violently that it felt like an assault, forcing her to run.  Roo refused.  She turned her back to the wind, twisting her head to keep her eyes on the boy.  The river grew frantic, crashing against the island's banks.

"No, Roo.  It's not really a good place for anyone."
"You stay," Roo accused.
"I'm paid to stay.  I have three little sisters back on Donkey and a mom who's raising them on her own.  I need this job.  And I'm needed here. You're not."
Roo thought of the garden, of the freshly cleared earth, bare now but full of possibilities.
I am needed here, she thought.
"Come on," Violet said.  She walked over to Roo and took her hand, squeezing it once. "Let's go inside and get this over with.  Ms. Valentine will be so relieved to see you she might forget to tear you into bits and feed you to the gulls."

Several other points are worth mentioning.  Roo's father, however far he may have strayed, is fondly remembered; his stories' roots found among the islands.  Acting as guides Roo's black squirrel and Jack's heron, further cement their connection to nature; she to the earth and he to the water, each listening, hearing and understanding.

Ellen Potter has penned a novel so easy to visualize, a movie in your mind to replay over and over.  Beautifully, haunting The Humming Room tells of the spring that follows the winter in her characters' lives gently growing from their hearts as the plants rise from the soil in the garden.  Without a doubt, multiple copies will be needed.

A Ghostly Friendship Frees The Light

I don't know what took me so long to make this decision but, after reading thousands of books, from now on I am collecting first lines.  They, like a first paragraph or first chapter, can take the reader away to another time and place within moments.  Whether introducing a character, setting the stage, raising expectations or providing the perfect lure, first lines are the stuff of power.  Lauren Oliver, in her first title for middle grade readers, delivers a stunner in Liesl & Po.

On the third night after the day her father died, Liesl saw the ghost.

Some thirteen months ago when her father was hospitalized with a strange illness, Liesl was locked in an attic room by her conniving, toad-like stepmother, Augusta, who proclaimed profusely that it was for her protection.  Strange her own daughter, Vera, was free to enjoy the fruits of Liesl's father's labors along with Augusta.

Neither boy nor girl, Po, has been drawn from the Other Side to the Living Side along with his constant companion, Bundle, neither dog nor cat.  Liesl and Po need one another for reasons more clear to the one than the other.  As a bargain is sealed between the two, the threads of friendship began to form.

Unbeknownst to Liesl, Will, an orphan, has become assistant to an alchemist dabbling in magic best left alone but which will assure him a status of great power if he succeeds.  As Will runs errands on many still, dark nights, he often pauses beneath Liesl's attic window gazing upward hoping to meet her, to become her friend and protector.  Through no fault of his own, other than exhaustion, Will commits an error.

Coincidences; mix-ups; harmless mistakes and switches.  And so a story is born.

Will was entrusted by the alchemist to deliver a box of huge magic, the biggest the alchemist had ever made or attempted to make, to the Lady Premiere.  He was instructed to go there first, then to Mr. Gray, the undertaker.  He does not.  That is why Liesl's household is in possession of the box of magic and the Lady Premiere has a box filled with the ashes of Liesl's recently deceased father. 

Liesl, Po, Bundle and Will escape the confines placed upon them by life (or the afterlife) to begin a journey attempting to fulfill the request of a dearly departed.  The alchemist, Augusta and the Lady Premiere are in hot pursuit with murder on their minds.  Thrown into the mix is a kindly, cat-loving guard of Lady Premiere's, Mo, who only wants to give Will a hat.

Lauren Oliver as she did in Delirium, previously reviewed here, is the true alchemist in this tale; using language to conjure an effect radiating characters for which readers will cheer or come to loath, a sense of place unlike any previously known and the pure, overwhelming joy at knowing there are people on whom you can rely through life and even beyond in death.

As he had walked down empty street after empty street, past row after row of darkened houses, in silence so thick it was like a syrup that dragged his footsteps away into echoes before he had placed a heel to the ground, he had imagined it perfectly:  how he would come around the corner and see that tiny square of light so many stories above him, and see her face floating there like a single star.

From the courtyard he heard a man calling out, "Where are you, you useless, worthless shrivel-head? When I find you, I swear, I'll cook you for dinner and turn your innards to meat loaf?"  He recognized the man's voice:  It was the one with the dripping nose, the man who had introduced himself as the alchemist.

Liesl managed to smile at him.  She liked that word:  we.  It sounded warm and open, like a hug.

Black and white illustrations that appear to be done in pencil and charcoal mirror the flow, the fiction, the flavor of this story in every respect.  Kei Acedera splendidly portrays the visions formed by the words of Oliver.

Certainly, frequently, a comedy of error, suspense at every turn, supposed kindness that takes a cruel turn but most assuredly this is a tale of wonder, of darkness overcome by a magical glowing light, a light released by friendship and love.  Liesl & Po written by the hand and most assuredly by the heart of Lauren Oliver is a fantasy that touches the very core of your soul; that will resonate in your mind for years to come.

I invite you to explore Lauren Oliver's web site and the web site of Liesl & Po for a treasure trove of goodies, videos, icons, wallpaper and a study guide to name a few.