Genre: Fiction/Folk Tales/ Ghost Stories
Reading Level/Interest Level: 4.1/ Grades 5-8
Awards: None
Similar Titles: More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
More Scary
Stores to Tell in the Dark is exactly what it claims to be, a series of short stories,
perfect for telling around a campfire or on Halloween. With classics like “The
Babysitter”, “The Hook” , "Highbeams" and “The Wendigo” in the mix, you’ll find a great
selection of well known scary folktales, urban legends and spooky stories to cause shrieks
and delights.
On a personal note: I re-read my original version
of this book (pictured here), which, honestly, has haunted me to this day as one of the scariest
books I ever read at as a child. Even so, I loved to camp out in the backyard
with a tent and a flashlight on summer nights, while toasting marshmallows and
scaring my friends with spooky narrations of these tales and the “Worms crawl
in, the worms crawl out” song. My copy is very well loved after more than 20
years, and re-reading them, I notice that, while I might have found them scary
at the age of 10, Schwartz was gracious enough to make sure that every tale
ended safely, and in an age appropriate
manner, unlike the scary stories I read as a teen.
All in all, I would recommend this book for perhaps mature 11 and 12 years olds on up , though, as I said, I read it at the age of 10. The stories were very well told, short and just as spooky as they ought to be. The illustrations have been redone, but my original version had illustrations that could have scared you out of your pants alone. Hands down, it is the best compilation of scary stories I own. It must be, after all, this paperback version is still in my collection after 2 decades.
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