There’s no denying the power a fun and scary short story has over a young mind. At such an unsuspecting age, these horror tales can leave much more of a lasting impression. And just like last Halloween, ten classic children’s anthology books are brought to light after they faded into the darkness over the years. They may be hard to come by, but these vintage collections offer youthful frights just as much as adult nostalgia.
And to help demonstrate why they were — and still are — so appealing, a creepy story from each book is highlighted.
The Hardy Boys: Ghost Stories (1984)
The Hardy Boys: Ghost Stories.
Joe and Frank Hardy weren’t known for their supernatural adventures. Most of the time, those kinds of mysteries were debunked and grounded. However, that’s not quite what happened here in The Hardy Boys: Ghost Stories, a six-part collection perfect for Halloween.
“The Walking Scarecrow” is a quality opener where the Hardy Brothers are stranded in the countryside. After a day of backpacking and then some car trouble, Joe and Frank hurry to a nearby farmhouse in hopes of finding a phone. Their efforts are for nothing, considering the place is abandoned. There is also the matter of a pesky, sentient scarecrow lurking in the fields. This entity continues to menace the Hardys, or so they think. The story’s namesake saying “don’t go to the house” and “leave this house at once” should have been a tipoff for Joe and Frank, but they insist on entering the house anyway. Lo and behold, the scarecrow wasn’t scaring them; it was warning them. The farmhouse catches on fire and burns down during a lightning storm, and the Hardys were nearly toast along with it. This first tale is simple and fun, and it even has some personality in the writing (“I’m not an expert on scarecrow psychology,” one Hardy Boy remarks).
The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard, Part II (1989)
The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard, Part II.
Previously I dug up The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard, Part III, which was written by Tracey E. Dils. The middle volume by Katherine Burt is far less grisly than its successor; it’s more of a medium between the tone and style of the first and third books. As in, it retells renowned stories and adapts popular urban legends. It doesn’t live up to its daring title, but The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard, Part II has its moments.
This collection contains a mix of adolescent and college-aged characters; unaware teens and their little sister befriend an escaped murderer in the Halloween-set story “Trick or Treat,” and in “The Last Initiation,” a hazing ritual ends with a frat boy’s accidental hanging. Then in the offering “Terror Trip,” a teenager’s family road trip is imperiled by otherworldly forces. After some car trouble, Jennifer’s family seeks help at the home of Shelley and her father. The daughter wears the random accessory of a red ribbon around her neck, and her father’s thin bow tie clashes with his sweats. Aside from that though, the hosts are lovely. It is only later that Jennifer and her family learn Shelley and her father are, as you expected all along, dead. The real twist is how they died. Upon coming to visit their gracious hosts on the way back from their vacation, Jennifer’s family meets Shelley’s mother, who, regretfully, informs them that she killed her husband and daughter on accident. By running them over on an icy road, then dragging them to their deaths. Jennifer returns to the now-empty house where she first met Shelley and her father, only to find their bloody ribbon and neck tie hanging on the front door’s doorknob.
Even More Tales for the Midnight Hour (1991)
Even More Tales for the Midnight Hour.
J.B. Stamper, or Judith Bauer Stamper, began her Tales for the Midnight Hour series back in the late ’70s. And this final book of thirteen stories contained more original material, with the exceptions of two retellings (specifically folktales “The Golden Arm” and “The King of Cats”).
A standout in Even More Tales for the Midnight Hour is “When Darkness Comes,” a moody and ambiguous yarn about an art collector’s fixation with a cryptic painting. Matthew picks up a rare piece of art from an antiques shop; the painting features a castle with a golden light shining in the highest tower. After having the painting restored, that light is even brighter. In addition, a Latin message on the painting is now legible: “Every century, darkness comes.” As he learns from the art restorer, the painting is of an old Scottish castle where a young lord mysteriously died in the highest tower. With no more info to go on though, Matthew’s fascination only grows. He becomes more bothered once the light in the painting “disappears” just as he’s showing the piece to his friends. Fed up with the lack of answers, Matthew goes to check on the painting one late night. That’s when he hears footsteps coming up the stairs. The next day, Matthew is found dead with no signs of how he died. Eerily, the light in the painting has returned.
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural (1992)
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural – The Woman in the Snow.
Patricia McKissack‘s book The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural is not just another anthology of fleeting campfire stories. It intersects the otherworldly with Black American History so that these shorts and essays not only entertain, they also educate.
“The Woman in the Snow” takes the familiar concept of haunted roads and vanishing ghosts to a new level by offering readers finality. It has a truly bittersweet ending. A prejudiced bus driver leaves a Black mother and her sick baby out in the cold rather than giving them a ride to the hospital, and as a result, she and the kid become spirits forced to relive their trauma over and over. Only later, after a Black bus driver gives a lift to these spirits, does the curse on this route lift. It’s an affecting tale that sheds light on how things, sadly, once were in this country. And to some degree, still are. The Dark-Thirty delivers more than thrills; it gives us food for thought.
More Night Frights (1993)
More Night Frights: Thirteen Scary Stories.
In addition to her Tales for the Midnight Hour books, J.B. Stamper penned a trilogy of anthologies called Night Frights in the ’90s. The second volume, which, by the way, features Dracula in chinos on the cover, is more of the same; bite-sized stories you can easily slip in and out of.
While most morsels in More Fright Nights don’t exactly linger on your palate, “Over the Hill” ends uncertainly enough to where you still have questions once everything is done. A scout troop, one headed by two neglectful teenage leaders, gradually disappears as members go and see what’s over the hill. The teens don’t care the least bit about their dwindling numbers until no one else is left. When the remaining characters go see what lured these boys away, they find only “blackness — nothing but blackness” over the hill. It’s almost a cosmic horror-esque conclusion.
Tales to Give You Goosebumps (1994)
Tales to Give You Goosebumps.
Some pitches don’t lend themselves to longer books, so Tales to Give You Goosebumps is a great outlet for R.L. Stine‘s musings. Not every piece is successful, but for the most part, these standalones are entertaining.
The story that kicked off this run of anthologies is a standard but satisfying one. In the aptly titled “The House of No Return,” three kids have started a group called The Danger Club (Danger Incorporated in the TV adaptation). The only problem with their club is they have no other members. So, naturally, they try to recruit other children. The initiation requires the pledges to spend an hour inside a supposedly haunted house, but as you can guess, no one makes it that far. Then enters the new kid in town, Chris, who refuses the task until he has no choice: the other children force Chris inside the house on Halloween night. At first the founding Danger members are impressed; then they’re concerned when Chris doesn’t come out after an hour. The three go look for him, only to then be seized by the spirits of the house. Where is Chris, though? Well, he went out the backdoor almost immediately. However, before being allowed to exit, he promised the ghosts they could have three other children.
Bruce Coville’s Book of Ghosts: Tales to Haunt You (1994)
Bruce Coville’s Book of Ghosts Tales to Haunt You.
Children and YA author Bruce Coville (My Teacher is an Alien) only provides one actual story in his Book of Ghosts: Tales to Haunt You, and the rest of this omnibus is made up of works by other authors. And as is often true with these collections, the headlining storyteller doesn’t even deliver the best work.
Vivian Vande Velde contributed a dark and mature piece called “For Love of Him.” It’s beautifully laid out and haunting. Here a Boy Scout named Harrison is sprucing up a run-down cemetery with his young peers. And when Harrison comes across a grieving woman at two adjacent graves, he becomes obsessed with the occupants: in one plot lies Robert Adams, and in the other lies Eulalia Meinyk. They each died in 1892, with Eulalia only dying two days after Robert. Harrison assumes they were a couple before Robert died first and Eulalia, presumably, died later of heartache. This theory, of course, is merely based on the grave inscription: SHE DIED FOR LOVE OF HIM. Soon enough, Harrison becomes consumed by the romance he’s spun in his head; the boy is blacking out out and hearing voices. He’s drawn to those graves by Eulalia’s cries, and if it weren’t for a retired gardener named Mr. Sonneman, Harrison would have joined her. It was Sonneman who told the boy the truth: Eulalia killed Robert, who was abusive, and two days later, his spirit returned to claim the woman who said she would love him forever. “She didn’t die for love of him,” Sonneman explained. “She died for promising to love him.” Free from the spell of Eulalia’s lonely spirit, Harrison finally learned Sonneman himself had died that last fall.
Rats in the Attic and Other Stories to Make Your Skin Crawl (1995)
Rats in the Attic and Other Stories to Make Your Skin Crawl.
Texas-born teacher and author George Edward Stanley — or just G.E. Stanley, because some authors love using their initials — ghostwrote for Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys as well as penned his own series of children’s horror books called Spinetinglers. The latter, however, was published under a pseudonym: M.T. Coffin. (Get it? Empty coffin?) And one of his standalone horror works was Rats in the Attic and Other Stories to Make Your Skin Crawl, a collection of unrelated tales of the macabre. Despite the title and cover, not every entry is about rodents.
The title tale is fine, as well as a bit gruesome, but “The Birthday Party” is delectably evil. A boy named Larry is nervous about the first day of school, but he’s happy to make a new friend. Even if that new friend, William, gets on the school bus at the cemetery. What’s even stranger is when William asks Larry to hand out birthday party invitations to three particular boys at school. William can’t seem to do it himself, and he requests that Larry not say who the party is for. The three invitees eventually agree to attend the party that Larry isn’t invited to, although William promises to save him some cake and ice cream. The guests are picked up by the same bus as before, and after panicking at the sight of William on board, the trio joins him at his party… In the cemetery. Back home, Larry’s parents recognize the names of William and the three other boys; they then tell him William died a while back after being pushed into a well by his three friends, all of whom went unpunished. That is, until now.
Fright Time, Vol. 4 (1995)
Fright Time, Volume 4.
If you ever went into a discount store in the ’90s, you might have seen copies of Fright Time. These cheap books each contained three standalone novelettes, with each one having been written by a different author. Unlike a lot of anthologies, these tend to have more conclusiveness to them. The writers have more space to wrap things up rather than leave the kiddos wondering.
The fourth volume, whose cover features a mummy giving chase to two children, begins with the best and most allegorical of the set. It’s not clear who wrote it, though. Anyway, “Don’t Breathe” has an asthmatic seventh grader moving to a Florida community after his father is hired by a top-secret chemical company. Shortly after arriving, Ricky learns, from his age-mate and neighbor Lisa, that there is something not right about this place. Everyone acts like automatons, including Ricky’s parents. Individuality is prohibited. Ricky and Lisa, who has diabetes, are, somehow, immune to the widespread mind-control; their respective conditions prevent them from being affected by the brainwashing at hand. And the culprit? A gas monster accidentally created at the chemical plant. The only way to save everyone now is these two kids. “Don’t Breathe” reads like a full novel limited by its page count. So be forgiving when it feels rushed and easily plotted. Otherwise, it’s an agreeable distillation of other “conformity is bad” stories.
Mega Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs (1996)
Mega Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs.
The Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs anthology series is a mixed bag, particularly because each volume is helmed by a different author. Don Wulffson took over for the seventh book, Mega Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs, which many readers would agree was overall better than other installments. Something that stood out was the lack of child death. Instead there is more of that kind of jokiness that the core audience enjoys as much as frights.
The first tale, “The Corpse of Mr. Porter,” is set on Halloween. The mischievous Danny and his friend Steve hope to pull a prank on Danny’s older sister, Sheryl, during her sleep-over. As the parents leave for the night, Danny and Steve carry out their plan. This involves Danny wearing a mask resembling the face of a recently dead man in town named Mr. Porter. Well, the trick doesn’t work like the boys wanted; Sheryl sees right through the mask. At first you assume this is going to be a “that’s actually Mr. Porter, not Danny” twist, what with Danny and Steve getting locked up in the attic rather than executing their stunt. Then comes another plot switch-up when the mother arrives home with bad news: someone has dug up Mr. Porter’s grave and the body’s now gone. The story could have ended there, but then there’s a knock at the front door, and Danny and Sheryl’s mother invites in the undead Mr. Porter. That’s when mom reveals hers and her husband’s own prank on the kids; the dad dressed up as Mr. Porter after overhearing their son’s plot. In the end, there was no real peril, however, the Halloween fun is amusingly told.
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