MORE SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alvin Schwartz, 1984. More scary stories to tell in the dark. Ill By Stephen Gammell. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 0-397-32082-5 Reading Level: 9-12

PLOT SUMMARY

‘More scary stories to tell in the dark’ collected from Folklore is composed of four categories and each has four to eight numbers of stories. Stories are about ghost, bogeymen, monsters, demons, and evil sprits, etc. Some of the most scariest stories to me were a story about a man who doesn’t know he was killed and became a ghost; a story about a crew’s ghost, which the pirate ship was sank off long times ago; and a story about a bride who tried to hide and locked in her grandfather’s trunk in the attic on her wedding day and her body was found a few years later by a maid. The subjects can be anything and the places where the episodes happened could be anywhere, but the common thing is they are supernatural and scary. The last part, The Last Laugh, is mild or middle level of scary stories. It seems like fearful in the beginning, but people can laugh when they read the last part.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Each story has from two to four pages, and sentences are short and easy to understand. Although his scary series are selected for America's most frequently challenged book in the year of 1990 and 2000 (http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm), it is one of children’s favorite books. It offers detail sources from which each story is adapted and bibliographies which explain abbreviations from the book. Stephen Gammell’s spooky and creepy illustrations increase the intensity of the mood, and sometimes, it is even scarier than stories.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

The Horn Book
"Brief, bloodcurdling tales of ghosts, murders, graveyards, and other horrors, greatly enhanced by the ghoulish illustrations."

School Library Journal
"Guaranteed to make your teeth chatter and your spine-tingle."

CONNECTIONS
*Activities
Let children have a group three to four students and give them a short scary story to begin with. And then let them make their own and compile them into a class book.

*Other scary stories from Alvin Schwartz
Alvin Schwartz. Scary stories to tell in the dark ISBN: 0397319266
Alvin Schwartz. In a dark, dark room, and other scary stories ISBN: 0060252715
Alvin Schwartz. Ghosts!: ghostly tales from folklore ISBN: 0060217960
Alvin Schwartz. Scary stories 3: more tales to chill your bones ISBN: 0060217944