"Mom, what's the name of the book you're writing?"
"The working title is 100 Books for Kids Who Love to Read."
"And you're including American Chillers. Right."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because they're not exactly great literature. "
"But they're scary."
"They're not even good literature."
"But they're scary."
"I don't think they're any good."
"But boys will love them. They're scary."
"No."
"Please!"
"No."
Let this be a lesson to all of you. Make sure you double check what your children are checking out at the library. Even if your 18-year-old son calls you on the cell phone from home to tell you he can't find the keys to the car to get to work and you realize that you have them in your purse and you need to rush the kids out of the library so he doesn't get fired. Your youngins may come home with over ten American Chillers titles.
I guess I better start searching out decent literature that's also scary. Poe may be a bit too much for a 10-year old. Any suggestions?
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8 comments:
Hardy Boys!! Chrissy
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Anything to do with vampires... I see Bayard have a guest illustrator for one of their stories in the September edition of Storybox - award winning illustrator Helen Oxenbury, who also provided illustrations for Alice in Wonderland StoryBoxBooks
The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales? Although I'm not sure if gruesome qualifies as scary...
American Chillers- not very well written kids' books, but fun to read and occasionally a tiny bit creepy. :P I read all the ones that were out at the time when I was 11-12 or so, 'cause I was bored.
I can't think of any well-written scary books for younger kids... at least any that would be at their level.
This is kind of a problem. Any "real" stuff, decent writing that is scary is generally too scary and dark (murder, reanimation of dead bodies, etc.) for younger kids. I find the same problems with finding science fiction for younger kids. So much of the classic stuff, even if readable by kids of a younger age, has bits of sex and can be rather atheistic and/or humanistic ideologies. Good luck!
I liked something wicked this way comes by Ray Bradbury at that age. But I don't remember how scary it got.
Thank you everyone!
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