Dawn Scuderi

Parkhurst, Liz (ed.). (2009). The August House Book of Scary Stories: Spooky Tales
for Telling Out Loud. Atlanta, GA: August House, Inc.


The August House Book of Scary Stories includes 20 ghost stories by various
tellers from different eras and from all over the world. The stories range from
traditional ghost stories to urban legends to original stories. Some of the better-
known tellers that have contributed to this collection are Mary Hamilton, Judy Sima,
Margaret Read MacDonald and Robert D. SanSouci. The stories are arranged by type
of scary story. The book is broken out into sections of Just Desserts and Lessons,
Ghostly Guardians, Dark Humor, Urban Legends and Jump Stories and
Fearless Females. Each section contains 4 to 6 stories with a different author and
from a different culture.
At the start of each one, the locale of the story or era and the name of the
teller giving this version is given. After each one there are story notes, which
include pointers from the particular teller on how to deliver the story and some
information about the teller of this particular version. Notes may include advice on
pacing, creating the various voices for the characters and ways the teller may want
to rework the story to make it their own. The teller also provides information on
where they first heard the story and any notes on where the story first appeared or
the culture of origin. In several cases the teller includes the some notes on the
variations of the story as it has appeared in print.
All of these stories are great for retelling. Some of the standouts are The
Mournful Lady of Binnorie, The Greyman of Pawleys Island, Aaron Kellys Bones
and Pretty Maid Ibronka. When looking for gore or a gross-out factor, Simon and
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the Magic Catfish, The Dauntless Girl and Johnny and The Dead Mans Liver are
perfect. All of these are really scary and should be kept to middle school and up. I
would not tell these to any grade younger than 5
th
.
These stories are all ready to go for retelling. An inexperienced teller could
take the tellers comments and would be completely set to tell any of them.
Obviously, all the tellings vary tremendously; however, all of the tellers in this book
are highly accomplished and award winning authors or storytellers. As this work is
edited, it is clear that the tellers in this work were compiled by the editor and
requested to submit a story for a specific genre of scary story. Each of the tellers did
their own method of researching. Some of the stories have notes about having
originally heard the story orally and some having found the story in a printed work,
but the featured tellers have researched all of these stories in some way.
This work would be invaluable if you had no experience storytelling and
needed to by guided through your first few stories or if you wanted to simply be
able to read the stories out loud and have some of the tone of actual storytelling.
Some of the cultural notes on the stories could make this a valuable resource for
study if you were focusing on ghost or horror stories from different countries. Most
of the stories in the book are from the United States, but even those may have some
origins in other countries.
In terms of the editing of the collection, Liz Parkhurst, has been an editor of
childrens books for over 30 years at the time of this work. She has edited several
collections of scary stories for children by various authors.

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Schwartz, Alvin. (1981). Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Collected from American
Folklore. New York: Harper Collins.


Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark covers 29 American stories. There are some
folktales, some with a Native American folklore origin and some urban legends. The
collection opens with a very brief explanation as to how and why stories like these
have gotten passed down over time. The author comments that the stories in this
collection are meant told allowed and shared for the fun of being scared. To that
end, the stories are divided into five sections: Aaaaaaah! (jump stories), He Heard
Footsteps Coming Up the Cellar Stairs (hauntings), They Eat Your Eyes, They Eat
Your Nose (corpses), Other Dangers (urban legends) and a final Aaaaaaah!
(funny, scary stories). At the start of each section of the book there is a brief
description of the make up of the section. Each section contains 4 to 6 stories.
Aside from the introduction already mentioned, the collection contains a
comprehensive notes section that explains the way the stories have been altered
or alternative ways of telling them and gives some advice on how to tell the various
stories collected. When necessary the notes of the book offer information on any
cultural references in the book. Likewise, there is a thorough sources addenda
that offers information on previous tellers of the stories or the print collection in
which the author found the works. Finally, the book gives the bibliographic sources
for any print collections or works mentioned in the sources and any articles that
the author referenced in the introduction or descriptions at the start of the sections.
Some of the selections in the book are actually poems or songs and with
some of the stories a teller could create a nice program from them. Many of the
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stories are retold here without much elaboration and they are fairly short. To make
a good telling for the age group that would be best suited to these stories (ages 10
and up), they would need to be filled out and more detail would need to be
provided. Stand out stories from this collection include Cold as Clay, The Guests,
Room for One More, The Hook and Aaron Kellys Bones.
Although the stories are not completely fleshed out, the collection is well
organized, well noted and includes very comprehensive source pages and
bibliography. This would be a very good collection for study for these reasons. In
terms of usefulness for storytelling, this collection would probably require a
storyteller who could use their imagination to fill out the text. It is clear from the
source notes, that even when the author has used a story that he received orally, he
took the time to locate a print version of the story and traced it. Author and location
if in print in the bibliography note each of the stories. He was very thorough.
Alvin Schwartz is an accomplished storyteller and collector. He has
published over a dozen collections and this body of work is only one part of the
folklore project for youth that he has collected and organized. His other collections
include Whoppers: Tall Tales and Other Lies and Witcracks: Jokes and Jests from
American Folklore.


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Cole, Joanna; Calmenson, Stephanie. (1991). The Scary Book. New York: Morrow
Junior Books.


The Scary Book is a combination of six stories, fifteen poems and various
riddles, jokes and projects regarding monsters and ghosts. The stories are written
by several different authors including Arnold Lobel, Maria Leach and Marilyn Hirsch
and that section is entitled The Viper is Coming: Stories. The poems included were
written by Shel Silverstein, Jane Yolen, e.e. Cummings, Pyke Johnston, Jr. and is titled
Hist Whist: Poems. It is followed by The Headless Man: Tricks, Games and Other
Spooky Things To Do and Spook-a-Doodle-Doo: Jokes, Riddles and Knock-
Knocks.
The book contains no introduction, glossary or index. There is a bibliography
page that includes the authors of the stories and poems within the collection and the
printed works from which these were taken. Likewise, the authors offer no cultural
notes or sources for the stories of any kind. While a few of them may be original
stories, some of them clearly have a history in folklore. Because there is a lack of
information on how the stories were obtained, what was changed in the retellings or
where the authors heard or read the original stories this book is not very valuable as
a resource for studying folktales or even scary stories.
Any of these stories would be good for retelling. The stories are written in
the style of a picture book. They are short and very basic. Nothing here is too scary
and some of them, like Strange Bumps and The Viper is Coming, have obvious
explanations for why the characters fear is silly making them perfect for a younger
audience. This collection is especially good for younger children. Some of these
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may even be fine for Kindergartners. Some of the best of the collection are The
Rabbi and the Twenty One Witches, Strange Bumps and The Viper is Coming.
With the stories, poems and crafts in the book all related to scary stories, a school
librarian could make a really cute Halloween program for Kindergarten through 3
rd

Grade. The stories are a little to young to hold the attention of listeners any older.
Joanna Cole is a previous elementary school teacher and as a writer is best
know for her work on the Magic School Bus books. She has also compiled several
collections including Best Loved Folktales of the World, A New Treasury of Childrens
Poetry and Anna Banana. (from backcover)
Stephanie Calmenson is also a former school teacher who wrote for Parents
Magazine. Her books include Fido, What Am I?, and Very First Riddles. She an Joanna
Cole have collaborated on several other books including The Laugh Book, and
ReadySetRead. (from backcover)


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Olson, Arielle North; Schwartz, Howard. (1999). Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from
Around the World. New York: Viking Books.


All of the 21 stories in Ask the Bones are very scary. The content includes
witches, voodoo, ghost dogs and demons in the attic. True to the title, the stories
come from The United States, Iraq, Japan, Russia, Eastern Europe, England, China,
Germany, Mexico and even Iceland. What makes some of these stories even scarier
is that several of them have an open end, suggesting that the evil or villain of the
story continues to engage in their terrifying behavior. The stories are not arranged
in any obvious way, but seem to just flow from one to the next. The book begins
with a brief introduction about what makes a good scary story and the nature of the
stories that will be found in the collection. It gives a little bit of a warning to the
reader, which may be good for someone younger who picks this book up expecting
stories like the ones in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. These are a level of scary
above those. (Aside: After reading several collections of scary stories, I though
Bring it on!, but some of these actually made me cringe they are so scary and
gross.)
The authors didnt include any cultural notes on the stories, but there is a
sources section at the end of the book and they all seem to come from a print source.
These are basically retelling of printed folklore. Unfortunately, the authors do not
include what they changed from the original versions of what they have collected
and retold here. A few of the stories have been covered in other collections, like
The Bloody Fangs is a version of The Boy Who Drew Cats from Japan and
Fiddling with Fire is also The Devil and Fiddler, but the majority of the stories
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were not covered in other collection in the section of bibliographies. The work gives
no information on how the authors collected the stories except to say that they
retold them from the printed versions of other collections.
All of the stories here are excellent for retelling as long as you keep your age
for listening in mind. These stories would work for 14 and up and you could even go
up to adults for some of these. There is nothing in this collection for a younger
audience, but stand-outs for an older crowd would be The Murky Secret, The
Black Snake, A Trace of Blood and The Greedy Man and the Goat. All of the
stories in the collection are fully fleshed out and ready to be told and average 7-8
pages in length. If you really want to gross out your audience you could elaborate
on some of these and really upset your listeners. (Especially The Greedy Man and
the Goatugh!)
Even though this work lacks the cultural notes for the stories in the
collection, it is still a very good resource just because the stories are so scary and
different. It does state the storys country of origin and give a print source for the
story, so it may be a good place to start for doing research into this particular genre.
The writing style is very engaging and the stories are descriptive and, several, are
full of action and suspense. This would be a fun book for older students or library
users to read, as the writing is really well done.
Arielle North Olson is a childrens picture book author and reviewer of
childrens literature. She worked as the childrens book critic for the St. Louis
Dispatch for over 25 years. (from backcover)
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Howard Schwartz has written over 20 books for readers of all ages and is
well known folklorist. He is the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award and
The Aesop Award of the American Folklore Society. He has taught at the University
of Missouri in St. Louis. (from backcover)

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LIS 718 01
Annotated Bibliography #4


Asala, Joanne (Ed.). (1995). Scandinavian Ghost Stories: And Other Tales of the
Supernatural. Iowa City, IA: Penfield Press.


This collection of Scandinavian stories focuses on 28 ghost stories that
originate from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland. The stories
included deal with witches, trolls, giants, devils and shape-shifters. All of the stories
have an inclusion of the supernatural or evil spirits. They are arranged by the
nature of the evil characters in the story. The sections include Tales of Wizards and
Witches, Tales of Ghosts, Specters and Spirits, Tales of Monsters and Tales of
the Devil.
The book begins with a very brief, half page introduction regarding the
nature of these stories and their relationship to folklore and legend. It also
discusses the oral legend of these stories and how Scandinavian peasants would
huddle around their fires telling tales of magic and mayhem. (Asala, Introduction)
In this short introduction there are brief cultural notes. As stated earlier, the stories
are separated by the nature of the characters and some are as long as 10 pages or as
short as a half a page. The book concludes with a resource page for further reading
and includes sources like the works of Asborjen, Lang and Boucher.
The majority of the stories would make great retellings. A few of them were
kind of dated and may be difficult for younger listeners. Some of the best for
retelling include The Three Aunts, Jorgen and his Dead Master, The Giant Who
Had No Heart in His Body and The Devils Hide. None of the stories are written to
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be very scary, but they can be blunt (like Grimms Stories); for example, So he
carried off the trolls wife and put her in his bed and when her husband came in the
middle of the night, the husband chopped off her head. Regardless, I would say that
these stories are good for ages 10 and up. A younger listening audience may not,
necessarily, become scared, but they may not understand the sarcasm or dry humor
of these tellings. Sarcasm and dry humor are very prevalent of the writing style of
these stories.
This is a terrific work for the storyteller as the stories are well selected and
the writing style is engaging. It may not be the best choice for research, as it does
not give any information about the origins of the stories themselves. The work does
not even contain a thorough bibliography. For research purposes, it would be better
to use a work with more authors notes and better accounting of retellings and
sources. The author selected tales focusing on ghosts and magic from several
folklorists and combined them into a cohesive work. Other than the subject matter,
the work does not contain any information about how stories were selected or how
the stories were obtained except that they are from the originally translated works.
Joanne Asala is an author and editor of over twenty books on folktales and
traditional tales and customs. She received a literature degree from University of
Iowa and has edited several collections of folklore from Eastern Europe, Ireland and
Norway. Her works include Trolls Remembering Norway and Troll Tales.



Dawn Scuderi