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I remember seeing you for the first time Scary stories to tell in the dark. It was second grade, and another kid smuggled a copy of Alvin Schwartz Horror Collection into the playground during recess. We huddled around, repulsed yet compelled by the terrifying images, unaware that what we read next would form the script of our nightmares for the next 30 years.
scary storyFirst released in 1981 but still famous among millennials for inducing ubiquitous, extreme terror at sleepovers and back-of-the-bus scare sessions throughout the ’90s.
What haunts me to this day is “The Dead Hand,” about a devil-may-care youth who goes for a walk in a swamp at night, only to be attacked by a severed arm that rips off the boy’s own arm, leaving nothing but a bloody stump. Story, with him accompanying illustration A screaming, gaping-toothed corpse emerging from a bog kept me awake for at least a week. I still remember sitting on my bed wide-eyed, absolutely certain that a disembodied hand was about to float through my bedroom door.
As Halloween approaches this year, I start to wonder if scary story was still popular, or if my children had their own equivalent – a horror story so powerful that it could leave a mark on the subconscious of a generation. So I reached out to booksellers, librarians, and my older kid’s favorite horror author to find out what scares kids these days and what role, if any, ghost stories play in their lives.
I thought Gen Alpha’s kids, obsessed with crazy doomsday fantasy skibby toilets, might be too bored to be scared. In fact, experts tell me the opposite—that the popular title today, is Choice A truly frightening story by Michael Dahl or Five Nights at Freddy’s series — a little tamer than what I read as a child.
“We had serious, gripping scares that kept you up at night,” Gene Darnell, director of library science for the Philadelphia School District and a lifelong horror reader, told me. “The psychological fear was a little more profound.”
There’s something to be said for a light touch in children’s fears. As much as I consider now scary story Part of my education as a writer and Horror fanI really don’t want my kids to stay awake night after night, afraid of being attacked by a severed limb.
But the contrast between my kids’ spooky landscape and my own made me wonder what kids really get out of scary stories, and the value of such stories in a legitimately scary world.
The taming of horror stories
I didn’t know it then, but I was old Children’s horror boom. scary storyWhich eventually grew into three volumes, soon followed by authors Christopher Pike and RL Stine, According to Mental Floss. The latter wrote the iconic Goosebumps series, which, including the mid-90s TV series, still looms large in the imaginations of many millennials.
Although some were stupid strangeMany were legitimately awful. That is ingrained in my mind Welcome to Camp NightmareWhere a boy arrives at sleepaway camp only to be intimidated by strange counselors and eventually pressured into hunting down his fellow campers with a tranquilizer gun.
Although widely popular, the Goosebumps books fell victim to their own success, a Saturated market and declining sales. In the 2000s, horror took a back seat to fantasy, especially the Harry Potter series.
But like a zombie, the genre has risen from the grave in recent years, even Book sales for struggling elementary- and middle-schoolers Anna Hersh, co-owner of Wild Rumpus Bookstore, a children’s bookstore in Minneapolis, told me that horror books are selling well, enough to keep the store’s dedicated “spooky shed” stocked year-round. Includes popular titles Story 23 from the cabinAn anthology series with each installment written by a different bestselling author, and monstrous, Its monster-of-the-web vibe makes it the most obvious contemporary successor to Goosebumps, Hersh said. They are aimed at 8 to 12 year olds, but younger readers will enjoy them Creepy Tales picture bookAbout everyday objects and foodstuffs (underwear, carrots) that come alive and spark Jasper, an unsuspecting rabbit.
Also popular, according to Hersh, is Gustavo is a shy ghostA 2020 bestseller (and a favorite in my house) about a sweet ghost who struggles to connect with her fellow paranormal beings. Gustavo And Its sequel More heartwarming than scary, but they take place in a world where werewolves, Calavera-style skeletons and invisible girls with floating glasses are common.
As for the classics of my youth, Wild Rumpus still stocks some goosebump titles, but those are mostly Graphic novel adaptation Released in 2010. Some of the original Goosebumps plots seem dated today — Gen Alpha readers may wonder why some of the terrified heroes just “used their cellphones and didn’t call their mom,” Hersh said. Harsh said today’s ghost stories are more likely to involve protagonists researching monsters and ghouls online, or take place in fantasy worlds where such technology doesn’t exist.
Scary stories are also less scary than they were in the ’80s and ’90s, says library science director Darnell, adding that horror just “feels watered down.” Adults are more concerned with age-appropriate topics than ever before, and school agencies and psychologists will be ahead if children’s authors today delve into psychological horror, Darnell said.
Today’s young readers are also “much more conservative in many ways” than kids of decades past, says Max Bralier, author (under the name of Jacques Chabert). Weird elementary book And a few other spooky series. When ’90s kids were creepily attracted scary story Cover, today’s youth may be more closed. In fact, a 2011 re-release featured the book Much less boring art (Though fan backlash eventually led to the restoration of the original images).
What spooky stories are not for children
There’s nothing to be a little worried about children’s mental health and ability to sleep at night. After all, there’s always a fine line between a fun scare and a traumatic memory. After seeing Bralier the jaw As a child, he recalls, “the ocean and the lake and the swimming pool were a waste of 15 years for me.” And as a writer, he said, “You really don’t want to hurt anybody.”
Some adults attempt to scare children only to find it sad in retrospect. I had a neighbor growing up who answered the door on Halloween wearing a very scary werewolf mask with bright red eyes. I don’t remember it fondly, and I think it’s fair to say that such costumes for adults seem to be less common today during trick-or-treating.
at the same time, Kathryn Zeger-Morton of Kat Recalling a complicated parental stunt from his youth, complete with a graveyard, a chainsaw and a disembodied voice from beneath fallen leaves. “It was a Joyful moments of terror Along with the delicious comfort of security, Jezer-Morton writes, she worries that children today are “missing a sense of a thin veil in the world that is hard to describe in words but vividly embedded in memory.”
For Darnell, meanwhile, horror stories are about learning to live in this world, with all its horrors. “When I’m reading a horror story, I’m looking at how the main character maneuvers,” he said.
Fear “makes you problem solve with the resources around you,” Darnell said. “I think it’s a skill that kids need.”
I don’t want my kids to be psychologically damaged by the books they read – after all, the reality of a warming planet and massive democratic retreat is scary enough. What I want to get from their horror stories is a sense of a universe full of mystery, the unknown always lurking behind us, its cold breath raising goosebumps on the back of our necks.
Or maybe that’s what I got from horror stories. Today’s young readers will have their own relationship with fear and their own way of finding out what they want to feel.
Even in this post-Goosebumps era, Hersh says he still encounters readers who like to be scared. “It’ll be this kid who’s like, in the cutest little dress, and so cute, and like, ‘What’s your scariest book?'” she said. “Some people have it.”
what am i reading
Olympian Allyson Felix is partnering with the nonprofit Chamber of Mothers Cover childcare costs Time for Parents to Vote (programs available in North Carolina, New York, and Los Angeles).
A Las Vegas high school has decided Give students a day off On Election Day — and many will volunteer at the polls.
What do children need?Boo basket?“Perhaps no.
My elder son and I are reading Season of the Witch: A Spellbinding History of Witches and Other Magical FolkFind a library. It’s not scary, but it has a lot of cool spells.
from my inbox
Last week, I asked for your experiences with apps that track kids’ grades and assignments at school. “My boys all struggled to keep track of assignments and turn them in,” wrote one reader. “For us, the ability to see which assignments have a 0 is the main benefit of a grade-tracking app. I check their grades daily and can tell them if they need to check their own grades. Then they will understand how to correct the mistakes.”
“Good for the kids Executive functioning Problem, this may be a non-issue,” he wrote. “But my very bright kids would probably have ended up with a lot of failing grades if we hadn’t tested the apps!”
Next Tuesday, as you may, um, be aware, is Election Day in the United States. Have you ever taken the kids to vote in your life? If so, what did they experience? Also, if you are a young person for the first time this year, please write in and let us know how you feel! You can contact anna.north@vox.com.
