REVIEWS What an amazing resource! This book is an excellent effective resource for anyone who works with schools, camps, libraries, and just wants to share it on from family book shelves. It is a must for storytellers who intend to tell scary stories to children under fourteen. This anthology of scary stories clearly demonstrates the rich selection of plots and stories that are common in America today. Many of the more traditional stories are provided with slightly different twists. This produces fun to read (or hear) collections for the new storyteller while still holding the interest of those readers (or listeners) who have heard these tales. There are several original stories that are found nowhere else - plus a large selection of the old standbys. Altogether there are twenty stories placed in five categories with four stories per group: Just Deserts, Ghostly Guardians, Dark Humor, Urban Legends and Fearless Females. You are bound to find a tale to fit any need! The stories included are not horror or suspense. Blood and gore are not ... any place in this collection of tales. Instead, the concentration is good scary fun! The short length of the book and each story make it an easy take-along for sleepovers and camping trips. Here you will find Margaret Read MacDonald's version of the Dauntless Girl; in addition to a fresh twist of the graveyard dare story from Great Britain. The Gingerbread Boy, a tale collected by Martha Hamilton, and a Cinderella story told with a visit to a friendly neighborhood witch who is right out of Hansel and Gretel. Kevin Cordi's "Aaron Kelly's Bones," serves as a great reminder of what to do when the dead come back to haunt the living. What better demonstration of the fact that the bones of old relationships get in the way of the current ones than a skeleton sitting in a rocking chair in your living room. Each story comes with notes and additional resources that could be used in developing a storyteller's own version of the tale. Included with the collection are hints of books, websites, and festivals to check out. I found the book very readable. The stories were so fresh that I could not put the book down; I had to read it in one evening. At 144 pages this book will become one of the old standbys of any classroom for middle school, especialaly 5th and 6th grade. This is an important oral narrative resource for any teacher wanting to include storytelling in the curriculum this fall. Without reservation, buy it, you and the kids you work with deserve a good fright!

From the African-American tale of “Johnny and the Dead Man’s Liver” to the Civil War ghost story of “One Lace Glove,” this anthology of 20 scary stories is—well, really scary! Grouped into five categories—Just Deserts and Lessons Learned, Ghostly Guardians, Dark Humor, Urban Legends and Jump Tales, and Fearless Females—there is a good mix of countries of origin and time periods. What makes these tales jump are the voices of the tellings, contributed by 20 different professional storytellers, along with tips on how to tell the story, background notes and the teller’s profile. Not for preschoolers by any means, these tales are exactly what the subtitle says. A few are familiar, such as “The Boy Who Drew Cats,” and people interested in storytelling will recognize some of the tellers’ names, such as Margaret Read MacDonald. From a macabre “Gingerbread Man” to the popular “The Red Satin Ribbon,” these spine-tinglers will have storytellers of all kinds jumping at the chance to tell their favorites.

All cultures have stories designed to scare, and most importantly educate children. The August House Book of Scary Stories: Spooky Tales for Telling Out Loud is a collection of scary stories for young people, drawn from a wide range of sources, ranging from folk tales from traditions around the world to urban legends. Also including the origins of each of its stories, The August House Book of Scary Storiesis a good source for either those lookig for stories or those who want a bit more of the history of the scary story. The August House Book of Scary Stories is a top pick.

Each of these 20 chilling tales is meant to be told out loud and includes author notes about how to maximize the spooky effect. Middle schoolers will relish reading and sharing these tales, hoping to creep each other out. While some of the stories are spookier than others, this is still a worthwhile addition for fans of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (HarperCollins, 1986) and Robert D. San Souci's Short and Shivery (Random, 2001). The book also deserves a place in professional storytelling collections.