Whether we realized it or not, scary stories meant for kids were messed up. The fear of looking under the bed might have gone, and we know monsters don’t exist in our closets. However, that doesn’t stop us adults from shivering in the dark from potential horror. With these stories and urban legends still enacting a bit of fear, the Bookstr team recounts the childhood reading that got them mortified. It’s recommended not to read this at night.
The Green Ribbon from In A Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz
I don’t willingly watch or read anything scary. I don’t like to be anxiously awake in the middle of the night thinking, “What did I just read?” But when I read The Green Ribbon as a kid, it didn’t register how messed up this story was till I was a bit older. The story’s illustrations didn’t have to be gory or detailed to be disturbing and always had an ominous feeling until the end. Now, when I think of a scary story, this is it
The image of Jenny’s severed head on the floor will always be disturbing to me. With her dying of old age, she tells her husband to take off the ribbon, and the next page is Jenny’s head on the floor, dead. That probably scared poor Alfred for life, wishing he wasn’t always asking about her ribbon. As a children’s book with pictures, you see her head on the floor with a cat looking at her with disgust or confusion, looking at that image now it’s funny. But now I question whether Jenny was always on the brink of death despite aging normally. Was she a zombie? How and when did she know?
Claudia Maldonado, Editorial Intern
The Hook from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
This anthology was all the rage at my elementary school library. The illustrations and the narratives complemented each other perfectly. The story I remember the most is “The Hook,” in which a couple, Sarah and Donald, are on their way home from the movies. The radio announcer declares a murderer has escaped from a local prison, which scares Sarah. She asks to roll up the windows, and Donald begrudgingly complies. A trucker follows them for a while, flashing his high beams. Naturally, they assume this driver must be the killer. However, when they get home, Donald finds a severed hook hanging from the passenger door where Sarah had been sitting.
I still, and probably forever will, get overly paranoid when someone flashes their high beams if I hear weird sounds while approaching my car, and I almost always find a way to look under the carriage if I can’t see underneath from a distance. This shook me, but I kept reading it over and over and over as a kid.
Arianna Fuhrman, Editorial Intern
All Goosebumps by R.L. Stine to Everything Stephen King
I’m a child of the 90s; I read all of the Goosebumps series I could get my hands on. One of my favorites was Say Cheese and Die, and I think it’s because I had an obsession with premonition content at the time. It didn’t seem too far-fetched that something could predict a bad future, especially a camera.
By middle school, I was into Stephen King pretty hard; Dreamcatcher was/is one of my favorite scary stories. Again, because it doesn’t seem too far-fetched. I have a memory palace, so it’s always stuck with me. Plus, how awesome was Duddits!?
Kristi Eskew, Executive Editor
The Lady In Black: A Prattville, Alabama Local Legend
The Old Pratt Cotton Gin, now a luxury apartment complex, stands like a hollowed-out monument along the banks of the Alabama River in Prattville, Alabama. Open for over a year, yet no living soul dares to call it home — it seems only the dead can afford to haunt its silent halls. Once, the mill was alive with the grinding machinery of the cotton gin, separating fibers from seeds in a relentless, mechanical hum that defined the town’s prosperity. But all that fell silent after the tragic death of Willie Youngblood, the boy who plunged to his death down the elevator shaft. His mother, consumed by sorrow, wandered the streets in a daze before she threw herself from the Pratt Mill dam, her body swallowed by the river’s unforgiving depths.
I say their bond lingers, and every Thursday at midnight, the ghostly pair reappears in a coffee house no one else can find, forgotten to time. They sit together in eerie silence, sharing blueberry scones and black coffee, their presence felt only by the cold draft that chills the air. But my belief goes deeper. Beneath the dam’s dark waters, another presence waits—a trapped mermaid, her mournful wails carried on the currents. Her secrets churn restlessly in the riverbed, waiting for the right moment to rise, to drag the living down into her watery domain. But that tale is for another time…
Freya, Social Media Intern
It by Stephen King
This book scared me as a kid when I first read it, as the idea of an evil clown creature that emerges from the sewer and torments a whole town freaked me out. The fact that the creature can shapeshift to other forms also added an element of not knowing what could happen, but the clown form was still the scariest to me. My biggest fear as a kid was clowns, and this novel fed into that fear even more. Now that I’m older, I’m not scared of clowns, but I still don’t like being around them.
Louis, Graphics Intern
Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by Deborah Howe and James Howe
I read Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery in the 3rd Grade. I chose the book to see if I would want to read other youth horror stories. I quickly found that horror stories were not meant for me. I still have nightmares about a bunny sucking on my neck with creepy little fangs, terrorizing my cats, and hiding in dark corners. I also don’t trust any bunnies, though I hold no lasting prejudice against bunnies… but I won’t be pet-sitting bunnies in the near future.
Rose Antrim, Social Media Intern
Grimm’s Fairytales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
I can’t remember if it scared me senseless and gave me nightmares but I remember being read Grimm’s version of Cinderella and possibly The Little Mermaid in elementary school when I was in fifth grade.
Looking back, I question why they read such a dark set of stories to a group of kids, but I also don’t think the stories were as scary as I thought they were. At the time, it was just the gore of it all that “scared” me. Cinderella’s stepsister cutting her heel off to fit her foot in a shoe now filled with blood leaves an impression on a kid who isn’t exactly a connoisseur of horror and gore.
Ashley Lewis, Social & Editorial Intern
Click, Click, Drag – Urban School Legend
This is not a book but a weird, scary story that my friends would tell on school trips. If you had the privilege of not growing up with it, the story follows a woman who drags herself by her hands and chases children. Perfect for a nine-year-old girl who walks home alone from school to hear, right?! I’ll be honest; sometimes, I still get scared when walking to a front door in the dark, and I scare myself imagining what would happen if I can’t open the door in time. All of the creepy stories I grew up with definitely raised me to love the spooky side of life (and literature), and I write horror today, so it all adds up!
Fiona, Editorial & Outreach Intern
Goosebumps and Fear Street series by R.L. Stine
I grew up on R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps stories, but I found his Fear Street to be scarier. Goosebumps seemed to be for younger audiences. It had less violence/deaths. Fear Street, however, felt like he didn’t hold back. The terrors that the characters had to deal with were more malignant. I didn’t have nightmares from his stories, but rather, I had inspiration for myself. One scene that I did find unsettling, though, was one of the stories (I can’t remember which Fear Street one). The main character had a haunted necklace that fused itself into the hollow of her collarbone. I don’t think I wanted to wear necklaces after that, but that didn’t last long.
Talia, Graphics Intern
Ghost Camp by R.L. Stine
One of the best horror writers of my childhood, R.L. Stine, knew how to scare a child with his eclectic Goosebumps series — which truly gave us goosebumps and nightmares and certainly scarred us for years to come! One of my scary faves is Ghost Camp. This story of two brothers and their discovery of a camp where the kids and counselors still engage in camp activities as if they were still alive is one of the craziest, creepiest stories I have ever read. Their ghostly forms described in the book certainly haunted me long after I’d closed the book.
I can’t say whether it’s left an indelible scar on me, but I can say that for a time it did. After reading it, I had a harder time rereading it due to the unsettling nature and creeptastic way in which Stine put this story together! The cover of the book also does me no good! But it is one the best scares to read, even still today!
Quiarah B/Vphan, Editorial Intern
The urban legends are the scariest ones on this list. Which one sent shivers down your spine?
For more scary books made for children, click here for 5 Scary Books and Series Perfect for Young Readers on Bookstr.com!
Want to read horror books for older folks? Click here to explore Spine-chilling Horror Novels Not for the Faint of Heart on Bookshop.org!
