Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I loved this book when I was a kid. I agree with you that parents have become so protected that they won’t let their kids read a few scary stories. It’s a shame.

I read this as a kid and loved them. I used to think the pictures in the book were actually scarier then the stories but that’s what I loved about it.

Just thinking about this book sends shivers down my spine! I love ghost stories, and it probably stems from my childhood with this book, my Ouiji board we, the Are you Afraid of the Dark? show on Nick back in the day. Sleepovers weren’t complete without one of those three things!

Parents need to let kids push the boundaries more. A little scare isn’t going to scar them for life, I certainly recall the stories vividly, but with a certain shivery fondness than emotional trauma.

I used to read these at my friend’s house all the time.  So fun!  I recently found a copy of the second one on sale, and it was better than I remembered- even if a lot of the stories are old hats.  Does anyone remember the story of the two little girls who act badly towards their mother and she goes away?  What was the deal with that ending?

Do not offer rides to hitchhikers if you’re alone and it’s dark’

So the book contains one of these “hairy hitchhiker” stories? Apparently, versions of this particular urban legend have been around since the 19th century. Sooo, should you ever travel back in time to Regency Britain, remember not to invite any hitchhiker into your carriage. ;-P

Besides the fact that parents seem to miss the fact that the point of scary stories is to be pleasantly scared, the other reason this book gets challenged is the illustrations.  A group in my Intellectual Freedom class this summer studied this book for a project, and in the case they were given, somebody made a request that a school media center restrict this series to students in fourth grade and higher, on the grounds that students younger than that couldn’t really read it anyway and would just be looking at gruesome pictures with no context.

Um, I read all three of them over first and second grade.  I really hate “they aren’t old enough to be able to read it anyway” challenges.

I was so close to reviewing this book -  read the whole series in 3rd and 4th grade, which pretty much shaped my love for a good, scary story.

When I was a kid, this series was responsible for me staying awake, wide-eyed with fright, until dawn and I was safe from the dark - on more than one occasion.

And, yet…I kept going back for more. I loved ‘em.

Those illustrations were absolutely terrifying, and the best part of the books! One image particularly stands out to me, after all this time: a dog standing still, looking like it’s evaporating and rotting at the same time—that dog was terrifying. I loved it. Those were some awesome books.

Oooooooh, I still have my very VERY well worn copies of these! I was “one of those kids” who loved creepy stories (not gory tough). The illustrations haunt me (ha) to this day!

I still have all of mine, on my shelf of paranormal literature. :-) It didn’t take me long to graduate from these to M. R. James, and that’s some stuff to make you lose sleep at night!The image I remember is of a girl’s face that’s rather tattered and corpsey, and her mouth is open so you can just see her teeth. Creepy picture, but so very, very cool!

I love ghost stories. I love fake ones, “true” ones, legendary ones, literary ones, anyone’s. I can’t understand why people will ban these stories, but crap like Saw MCCDIIV is still getting made into movies.

I picked up the first recently, on a whim.  And what I found—it was actually quite tame.  Most of the stories I couldn’t figure out why I thought they were scary.  And some of them—well, I couldn’t see the point to it.  What motivation did the ghost have for coming back? Why did some have no closure? Why the heck did that kid’s mother think that a half-rotten toe would make a good meal for the entire family?

It’s fine for kids, but today only the illustrations still give me a shiver.

Oohhh! I loved this book growing up, and to this day I still check my back seat before getting in the car.

Is this the one with the song that goes:

O’Leary is dead and O’Reily don’t know it
O’Reily is dead and O’Leary don’t know it
They both are dead in the very same bed
And neither one knows that the other one’s dead.

I always wondered what O’Leary and O’Reily were doing in bed together.

Hi, I am doing a extra credit project on this for school and was wondering if you could tell me what the end result was from the challenges on this book. I know they still sell it but did they move up the reader age or what? I can’t find anything saying what happened. I really love the stories! They are scary and that is why I like them! It can be a little gross though but it is always fun to read stories like these!