Scary stories to tell in the dark
1981
- cuentos de terror estadounidenses
- american ghost stories
- american horror tales
- cuentos de fantasmas estadounidenses
- tales
- folklore
- cuentos populares
- horror stories
- ghosts
- spanish language materials
The story
Stories of ghosts and witches, "jump" stories, scary songs, and modern-day scary stories.
What it’s like
Short, punchy tales told in a campfire voice, with a spare, rhythmic prose that reads aloud easily and leaves room for a flashlight-under-the-chin delivery. The book's texture is famously tied to Stephen Gammell's ink drawings: grainy, smudged, and gray-black, with faces that seem to be half-dissolving out of the page, so the look is more unsettling than polished. The mood is eerie, playful, and macabre by turns, ranging from folk ghost tales and witch legends to sing-along verses and short "jump" stories that snap shut on a shock. Pacing is brisk, since most entries run only a page or two, so it works well in short bursts: a dark-night read, a sleepover, or a low-light sitting when you want a shiver without a long commitment. Its scares come from atmosphere and the uncanny rather than gore, though some images and endings are genuinely creepy, and a few of the drawings are unnerving enough to linger, so expect a jolt or two rather than gentle comfort. It suits readers who love folklore, Halloween reading, and spooky-but-fun horror, and it is a natural pick for children and teens who want to be scared in a playful, communal way, including Spanish-language readers coming to American ghost tales.
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