Customer Reviews

Campfire Stories, Vol. 1: Things That Go Bump in the Night (Campfire Books)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an easy book to tell stories from. There is a good section at the begining of the book, giving tips on how to tell stories At the end of each story, there is a review of the story in point form so you don't have to read them to your audience. You can actually "tell" them the story. The stories are adaptable to many settings and I have used many of them around different campfires for youth aged 5 to 18. The stories also have endings that will not have younger youth having nightmares and having "accidents" in their sleeping bags. I highly recommend it for any story teller, scouter, guide leader etc.

Should you need to pick between the available Scout campfire story books instead of buying them all, don't leave Dr. William Forgey's "CAMPFIRE STORIES: Things that Go Bump in the Night" off of your list.

"Stories to be good have to be credible" is the advice Forgey gives, and it's the credibility factor that sets this collection apart. These tales sound so real your audience may not see them as fiction. Youths 11 to 15 years old, (the suggested age group) will believe them up to a point, and they will like them. Properly told, even an adult audience should find some meat this anthology. Although the book is marketed to Scout leaders in particular, these are not "Scout" stories for the most part. Your non-Scout youth group will like them.

Besides the original stories created by the author, CAMPFIRE STORIES includes Forgey's masterful adaptations of uncommon vintage ghost stories penned by others, and even offers a true tale, "Death of an Old Lion" as told by Ernest Thompson Seton. Even a story by Mark Twain comes included. All of these stories are highly memorable, with entertaining, suspenseful plots. In "The Valley of the Blue Mist," Forgey shares his version of this old story, which is found elsewhere under other names, but his is the best version I've yet seen.

Only two of the stories out of the twenty were a disappointment: "La Cucaracha Mine," a pointless, plotless hole, and "The Indian Chief's Wait," which you will soon figure out is that familiar joke story, "Falling Rocks" in a poorly disguised form. The 5 stars are for the other eighteen "must-have" stories.

At least the storytelling advice given in this book is practical and useful. Forgey includes a sequentially-numbered plot outline at the conclusion of each story, which I don't find necessary, but I'm certain many will find these most helpful. This book is a bargain!

-Byron C. Justice, author of
Haunted Camps
and Violent Night

I dont think the author of this book every sat at a campfire, let alone told a scary story. The 7 and 10 year olds at our campfire got up and walked away and the adults just moaned. Nothing but goody two shoes morals for endings and no suspence. Make up your own stories instead of purchasing this book.

"Campfire Stories" delivers exactly as promised by Dr. Forgey: it coaches the reader in the fine art of telling scary campfire stories. Each of the twenty-one stories of deadly adventures, crawling quilts, cannibalism, poisonous snakes, and talking corpses is written out with the places where the teller should slow down, raise his or her voice ("THOUSANDS, AND THOUSANDS OF THE ROACHES POUNDED HIM ON ALL SIDES. HE COULDN'T GET HIS BREATH, BUT HE HAD TO BREATHE!"), and/or scream ("AAAUUUGGGHHH!"). An outline follows each of the stories, so that the would-be teller of campfire tales can memorize the gist of the story while supplying his or her own background details. There is also the occasional epilogue, in which the author explains why he likes the story.

The author spent 10 years as a scoutmaster to 3 different troops, and has honed these stories to the 11 - 15 age group. Don't expect to find any heroines--these stories seem to be strictly for boys. Of course, there aren't many heroes, either as a ghost story wouldn't be a ghost story if someone wasn't creeping about at night when he was strictly warned to stay inside.

The stories: "The Valley of the Blue Mist" (my favorite); "The Human Hand;" "La Cucaracha Mine;" "The Partner;" "The Mackenzie River Ghost;" "Death of the Old Lion;" "The Ice Walker;" "The Message;" "The Haunting of the House on the Ridge;" "The Curse of the Australian Gold;" "The Lost Hunter;" "The Ghost at Sevenoaks" (the original of this story is "Moonlight Sonata" by Alexander Woollcott - it can be found in "Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library)"); "Cannibalism in the Cars;" "The Vampire of Groglin Grange;" "A Musical Enigma;" "The Haunting at Vine Street;" "Deluse's Golden Curse;" "The Talking Corpse;" "The Creeping Quilt;" "The Indian Chief's Wait."

I found the slightest tinge of racism in one of the stories, but you can easily delete it when you tell the tale yourself.

I bought this book for scout camp outs. I haven't told many of the stories, but my young boys have read them all and really like them.

Stories are 2-4 pages so they are easy to read at a party or become familiar enough with to tell from memory.