Featured image credit: Image by Amber Avalona from Pixabay
What age did you start getting into horror? I technically saw my first horror movie at nine years old — Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses. Nice way to introduce a child to horror, right? Well, I had a fascination with horror long before I became acquainted with the Firefly family. That’s thanks to the myriad of child-friendly horror novels I read as a kid.
Back when I was at the wee ages of six and seven, you couldn’t catch me without my nose plastered in a Goosebumps book. I can never look at a scarecrow the same way again (thanks Alvin Schwartz). And that bitch Jenny who wore the green ribbon…
So, what are my favorite scary books I read as a kid?
Goosebumps – All of Them
Yep, this ERMAHGERD GERSBERMS girl was totally me back in the day.
Don’t lie, you were looking forward to the Scholastic Book Fair only to buy those Goosebumps books.
This meme was totally me.
But seriously, no bad Goosebumps book exists. They’re all ace. But here were my favorites from the horror book series:
The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb
Deep Trouble
A Night in Terror Tower
Night of the Living Dummy
The Haunted Mask
Monster Blood I, II, and III
The Phantom of the Auditorium
Welcome to Dead House
Piano Lessons Can Be Murder
Say Cheese and Die
How I Got My Shrunken Head
Ghost Beach
I know there are more. Too many to name.
Why are Goosebumps so great? I remember a lesson my writing teacher taught me. About writing books that are easy to read. I used this lesson when I wrote my book, Dissecting House. She gave Harry Potter as an example. They’re technically children’s books but adults also enjoy them.
I briefly revisited these books. And I realized my writing teacher’s advice also extends to the Goosebumps series. The books are easy to follow, the writing is simple and to-the-point, there are no unnecessary details and descriptions that bore kids.
Then again, do adults enjoy it when writers go off on tangents and write with fluff? I don’t.
Now there are no adult themes in the Goosebumps books. No gore, no extreme violence, no sex, and the list goes on. Definitely not like my books. But the books do hold real horror and fantasy situations that are terrifying, even for adults.
I’ll use Welcome to Dead House as an example. I’m sure you read this book — but just in case you didn’t, spoiler alert.
When Amanda and Josh discover their friends in Dark Falls are ghosts, it was pretty terrifying. Even re-reading it as an adult, you get an unsettling feeling. R.L. Stine portrays the scene well — the kids find the gravestones, their dog goes missing, and then there’s the confrontation with the other kids.
It’s a scary concept but it’s written in a way that’s appropriate for kids and still interesting for adults. Trust me — coming from a horror writer myself, this isn’t easy to achieve.
Overall, R.L. Stine is a genius and these books had a huge impact on me.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Right next to Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark scared the bejesus out of me. Seriously, I will never bully a scarecrow in my life. Oh, and if someone is driving behind me flashing their high beams, the first place I’m looking is my trunk. Thank you, Alvin Schwartz. Oh, and it’s not like the nightmare-fueled illustrations by Stephen Gammel made things better.
I will say, there are stories that are better than others. I honestly didn’t care for “Me Tie Dough-ty Walker,” even though this story is considered a classic. But stories like “Room for One More” are super clever and well-written. And then you have stories like “The Big Toe.” Seriously, who would eat someone’s toe they found in their yard? Ew.
“The Green Ribbon”
“The Green Ribbon” is actually a story in the kid’s spooky story book In a Dark, Dark Room (also written by Alvin Schwartz). But “The Green Ribbon” deserves a special section.
Okay, first off, this story shouldn’t be in any children’s book.
In case you never read this book or heard of this story, “The Green Ribbon” follows a little girl named Jenny who is always wearing a green ribbon tied around her neck. However, we never know why. She even meets a man named Alfred (who she ends up marrying) and he asks her about her ribbon. All she says is, “I cannot tell you.”
So the story goes on as normal. But the story cuts to Jenny dying. She tells Alfred to untie the ribbon.
And *spoiler alert* HER HEAD FREAKING FALLS OFF!
My six year old self was confused and traumatized by this story.
And I’m not the only one. There’s serious “Green Ribbon” inspiration in the video game The Wolf Among Us, there’s a short film made of the story, and you can find different discussion forums about the story online.
In addition, “The Green Ribbon” goes by many names — “The Yellow Ribbon,” “The Red Ribbon,” “The Velvet Ribbon,” etc. There are also many variations of this story. For example, in “The Red Ribbon,” the husband takes off the ribbon while his wife is sleeping and her head falls to the floor.
Apparently, the story is based on a European folk motif where a red ribbon marks where a person’s head was cut off and then re-attached. Weird but okay.
Even though that’s a basic explanation, there is a supernatural quality about this story. How is Jenny not only still alive, but she ages — starting out as a little kid and then growing into an adult? I think the mystery behind the story is what creeps people out to this day.
In a Dark, Dark Room
So “The Green Ribbon” is featured in a compilation called In a Dark, Dark Room. Surprisingly, the rest of these stories aren’t as scary. They’re made for little little kids, meaning kids who are just now learning how to read. So they have to put down the scare factor a bit (“The Green Ribbon” is the exception).
There are some gems in here. The story “In a Dark, Dark Room” is pretty dumb (just about a ghost in a box in — you guessed it — a dark, dark room). But there are other enjoyable stories that are worth mentioning.
Let’s start off with the story “The Teeth.” It’s pretty much about a boy who’s walking alone at night. He asks a strange man what time it is (smart move, buddy) and notices the guy has huge teeth. As the boy walks, he sees more strange men with huge teeth.
Now, nothing happens to the boy. He just comes across men who clearly have some freakish tooth abnormalities.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Why is a boy walking alone at night? From the pictures, he doesn’t look older than 10. Pretty poor parenting, which is probably the scariest part of the story.
2. Hey, I don’t blame the kid. If I saw creepy dudes smiling at me with those huge chompers, I would book it out of there.
Next up is “In the Graveyard.” It’s very similar to the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark story, “Old Woman of Skin and Bone” and it’s actually better than the Scary Stories version.
So, you see a woman who enjoys spending her leisure time in a graveyard. While she’s in the graveyard, some fresh corpses get delivered and are buried. The woman asks them, “will I be like you one day?” And the corpses replied, “yes.” Not surprisingly, the woman flipped shit and ran off.
The moral of the story is: we should never forget our mortality. And don’t talk to corpses…BECAUSE THEY MAY TALK BACK!
“The Night It Rained” was more sad, not like the other scary story books. A man sees a boy standing near the cemetery in the rain and offers to give him a ride home. He let him borrow his sweater. The next day, he discovers the boy is dead. The man’s sweater was on the boy’s grave.
Hey, I guess when you’re dead, you feel more comfortable accepting rides from strangers.
“The Witch’s Curse”
It took me years to find this story and I succeeded. It was in some horror book compilation (can’t remember the title). Now that I found it again, I did some digging and discovered that this story may be real.
The story centers around Colonel Jonathan Buck and his mistress, Ida Black. As time goes on, Ida succumbs to age (as everyone does) and the Colonel snags a younger, hotter woman. To rid himself of Ida, he accuses her of a witch.
Welp, news flash, IDA IS A WITCH! And she puts a curse on him, saying she will dance on his grave. And what do ya know, a bloody leg print appears that they can’t get off his tomb. They even tried replacing his tomb. Nope. The leg print appears.
So maybe you read this and are saying to yourself, “psht, BS. This is fake.” HOLD UP THO! If you visit the Colonel’s grave, you can see the leg print. There’s no record of an Ida Black living there, but there is a leg print on his grave that they can’t get off or it always reappears.
Moral of the story: don’t fuck with witches.
So kids stories are cool. But are you about the horror but aren’t about the kid horror? Well, my book, Dissecting House, features gore and other fun stuff. Buy my book here!