Customer Reviews

Scary Stories

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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Eep! I've enjoyed many books featuring Barry Moser's illustrations, and when I spotted this horror anthology with his distinctive style on the cover I had to have it. The table of contents shows stories by classic horror writers Lovecraft, Poe, Bierce, and more - but also includes works by more recent authors, from Capote to King. [Several of these, including the opening story, Dean Koontz' "Kittens," and Bram Stoker's "The Squaw," feature Bad Things Happening To Cats, so be warned; in most cases vengeance is duly delivered, and I find that I have a much easier time reading about Bad Things Happening To Bad (or at least Not Very Nice) People!]

Moser's illustrations are sometimes rather subtle - like the hand on the cover, fingertips dripping blood - and sometimes outright horrifying, like the picture of the baby in Dahl's "Genesis and Catastrophe". [That's the kind of picture that used to make me memorize the page number so I could flip past it without looking next time!] Each story has one illustration, sometimes of a key moment and sometimes of an incidental one, but all very effective.

I was amused to find this line in the E. F. Benson story "The Bus-Conductor" - it might serve as an explanation for why one would deliberately read a book with stories and pictures that make one want to look away. One character is being asked by another why he continues to go ghost-hunting when it clearly terrifies him, "or do you like being frightened?":

"'Why, of course, I like being frightened,' I said. 'I want to be made to creep and creep and creep. Fear is the most absorbing and luxurious of emotions. One forgets all else if one is afraid.'"

It isn't the terrifying tales that bother me most; it's the profoundly disturbing ones, such as Joyce Carol Oates' nightmarish "Thanksgiving". Give me tell-tale hearts and ghostly weddings any day!

An excellent selection of short horror stories, some by familiar authors, others not. Each story is creepy and disturbing in its own way, and the illustrations by Barry Moser perfectly capture the essence of each. I read these aloud with my 11-year-old son, and afterward found myself lingering over each story, thinking about some image or mood created by the narrative. (In a couple of the stories, the 19th-century phrasing was a little difficult for my son.) The collection could have been better yet by including more stories and more illustrations.

If you want scary and wierd stories to read then get this book. I have not read all of it but so far it is very good! One story that was good was Kittens. I read scary stories all the time and this book is one of them that I like.

I purchased this book in hopes of reading it to my nieces and nephews on halloween. While it did provide me (an adult reader) with a few good stories, this is not a book that young people will have interest in. In fact, if you have not taken some college literature courses, this book is not for you!!! A more accurate title for this book would be "Dark Stories" becaue the only thing scary about it is the glimpses that we are given into the human mind. These stories do inspire one to think, but they are just not scary...not in the traditional sense that "scary stories" would lead one to think. The picture from the cover is to a story called "Kittens" which was the best in the book. It is about a little girl who drowns her baby brother and sister, whom her mother calls "God's little angels" because she witnesses her father murder her kittens, and her father tell her that he is doing God's will. She thinks she is getting even with God by kiling "god's little angels". See...nothing too scary there, huh? And while i liked it, this was not an easy story to explain to a child! The whole book is like that, only most of the stories are not as well written as "kittens"