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Help a Reader Out: The Babysitter

A mystery keyword searcher is looking for… a scary book about a babysitter telling a couple of kids a scary story.

Gosh, babysitters figure in so many scary stories, but usually (oddly, considering that they’re the ones supposedly in charge) they’re victims. I don’t know if our mystery searcher has a specific book in mind or is just looking for any story that fits these criteria. If it’s something specific, I don’t know that I have an answer, but there is one extremely creepy short story I know of where a babysitter tells her charges a very creepy story. That story is “The Specialist’s Hat”, and it appears in the short story collection Pretty Monsters, by Kelly Link. If anyone out there has knowledge of a BOOK with this theme, please post it in the comments below.

Thanks!

ETA:  It looks like we have a winner! If you haven’t checked out the comments below, Jericho suggested  “When Nobody’s Home: Fifteen Baby-Sitting Tales of Terror” by Judith Gorog.  If you’re interested in finding out more about her or her books, I did respond in the comments, but I’ll copy it below, too. Here’s what I said:

I am not personally familiar with Judith Gorog’s books, but it looks like she was responsible for a lot of scary books and short story collections for children and young teens, mostly written in the 1980′s and 1990′s (this particular title was published in 1998). Since we get a lot of requests for the scary stuff for kids in these age groups, I’ll list some of the titles I found at the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (for the entire article click here). One review I saw for “In a Messy, Messy, Room”(at the lower end of the age range) recommended setting the book out with Alvin Schwartz’s “In a Dark, Dark, Room” and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”, so if you can find them, they look like they’re worth checking out!

A Taste for Quiet and Other Disquieting Tales. New York: Philomel, 1982.
When Flesh Begins to Creep. London: Gollancz, 1986.
Caught in the Turtle. New York: Philomel, 1983.
No Swimming in Dark Pond and Other Chilling Tales. New York: Philomel, 1987.
Three Dreams and a Nightmare and Other Tales of the Dark. New York: Philomel, 1988.
In a Messy, Messy Room, and Other Strange Stories. New York: Philomel, 1990.
Winning Scheherazade. New York: Atheneum 1991.
On Meeting Witches at Wells. New York: Philomel, 1991.
Please Do Not Touch. New York: Scholastic (Point Horror), 1995.
When Nobody’s Home: Thirteen Tales for Tonight. New York: Scholastic, 1994.
Zilla Sasparilla and the Mud Baby. Cambridge: Candlewick, 1995.
In a Creepy, Creepy Place and Other Scary Stories. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Posted on October 2, 2012 by , 2 comments

Help a Reader Out: New Kid on the Block, Over and Over Again

Ah, the 1980s. A time of YA fiction of all kinds, and of many, many series books. Sweet Valley High, The Girls of Canby Hall, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators… okay, I admit those are not the right genre for those of you who were reading Point Horror, but some of us took the long route.

Somewhere in the 1990s I became a children’s librarian- this was at the height of the popularity of the Goosebumps books, and I remember their massive popularity. Oh my gosh, there is no way I could EVER forget. But you all will have to help me out here, because apparently, somewhere in between, Jay found a YA horror series with a very specific formula for the plot. It’s not Point Horror, and R.L. Stine didn’t really get going until the 1990s… but somebody MUST know the name of this series.

Jay writes:

I came across this site and it seemed like it had a lot to offer. What I am looking for is some help with some titles/books from the 1980’s. The books were geared for young adults and were written in the 80’s. They had a very standard format to almost all of them. “New kid moves into town and right away becomes the target of the popular guy, new kid develops crush on bully’s girl and eventually may even be a couple with her by the end of the book. Sometimes the new kid is an athlete. Usually there is some kind of mystery/conflict in the new town; sometimes zombies, vampires, or some kind of satanic force that confronts the new kid.” I must have read over 100 of these books during the 80’s, but never kept any of them. It’s been roughly 30 years since I read them and certainly cannot remember any of the titles or the authors. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I want my son or daughter to start enjoying these type of books, but can’t find them anywhere. I hope to hear back from you soon!

Thanks, Jay, for your confidence in us. Can anyone help Jay find these books so he can share them with his kids?

Posted on July 19, 2011 by , 2 comments

The H-Word.

Horror fiction.

There. I said it.

There IS such a thing as horror fiction. There’s actually enough of it to constitute a genre.

That would be the HORROR GENRE. Not science fiction, not fantasy, not “thrillers”, urban fantasy, or paranormal romance. Nothing wrong with those. There are a lot of fantastic crossover titles, and there is a reason that we review them.

But, hello? The horror genre exists. It’s here. And I’m tired of not reading about it when it is completely discounted, or when books that clearly fall into the category of horror fiction are described as everything else.

Let’s see… In the past month here’s what I found (or didn’t find).

First, in the field of research on literacy, reading engagement, and advocacy…

1.) I was rereading Stephen Krashen’s The Power of Reading. I admire Krashen and his research has been and is incredibly important because it’s about engaging and creating readers, and it’s backed by data. Krashen was an early advocate of (ahem) “light reading” for kids. In the book, he mentions a study he co-authored in 2000. In this particular study (not the only study he’s done, this is just an example) Krashen found that 53% of 124 fourth grade students remembered the first book to make a major impact on them (in his words, a “home run book”). That’s about 65 kids. Of these, SIXTEEN were “scary books”. In other words, nearly a quarter of kids who remembered their “home run book” remembered a “scary book”. And that’s just one study.

Krashen discussed the value of teen romances and strongly advocated the use of comics and graphic novels to engage kids and teens in reading. But in all his discussion of “light reading” he never uses the H-word, and when he does mention scary stories, he is dismissive of the books of R.L. Stine, who was hugely popular at the time the first edition was published. That is, he dismissed the valued reading material of nearly 25% of the kids (fifteen of the sixteen books mentioned were R.L. Stine books). Since Krashen wrote this book, graphic novels have become relatively accepted as legitimate reading material, and there’s been a lot written about their value. Scary stories? Horror fiction? Not so much.

2.) Let’s fast-forward a bit to a more recent book, Readicide, by Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher addresses the problems inherent in giving kids the opportunity to get “lost in a book” when teachers and schools are overwhelmed with the pressure to succeed on standardized tests. He’s a passionate advocate and it’s an important book.

And then we get to the book list at the end. “101 Books My Reluctant Readers Love To Read”. A list of coming of age stories, sports stories, nonfiction and memoirs, poetry, mystery, and (surprise!) graphic novels. And… the extremely awkwardly named category award goes to… “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”!

Yep. Christopher Pike is on that list. He wrote Point Horror titles. Is it THAT HARD to say “horror”? Which of those categories does World War Z fall into, Kelly? I’m pretty sure most readers of zombie fiction would be surprised to find themselves described as readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”. Heck, do any of your students call themselves readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”?

And these are the advocates for reluctant readers and reading choice in schools, in libraries, and at home. I have tremendous respect for the work they do- it informs my whole way of looking at the world. I am so disappointed that horror fiction is so far beneath the radar that they don’t notice what is right in front of them.

But there’s more. It will have to wait though, because it’s time for dinner.

Posted on May 28, 2011 by , Reply