Horror and the supernatural was a big part of my childhood. I grew up in the ’90s and there is a few movies, television shows and books that really shaped my love for all things creepy. One of those top influences was the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, there was three, by Alvin Schwartz. I came across a collection of all three at Books a Million and snatched that thing up to read it cover to cover. It took me back to checking these books out at the school library, reading them and then being jumpy for days, haha. What made these books so scary wasn’t so much the stories, though those were quite frightening, but it was the illustrations drawn by Stephen Gammell. The pictures above are a few of my favorites. They’re so simplistic but I think that’s part of what makes them so disturbing. I also included a picture of “The Hearse Song” because it was one of my favorites. Guillermo del Torro is planning to make a movie based on these books and you better believe I’ll be first in line to see it.

 

Next up, and also by Alvin Schwartz, is In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. This book is filled with some pretty intense stories to be for very small children but I loved it. My favorite story was “The Green Ribbon”. If you’re not familiar with this disturbing story check out this article by Buzzfeed where they summarize it.

These books are very dear to my heart and I can’t wait to terrify my future children with them, haha! Let me know if either of these were apart of your childhood! Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Nevermind, we’re not done here yet because I found something super exciting!

Cemetery Gates Media has a Kickstarter set up to create a new book called Corpse Cold: New American Folklore. Corpse Cold will be a collection of stories along the same lines as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Goosebumps. Basically, the same style of horror a lot of us grew up with in the 1980s and ’90s. Cemetery Gates Media has a WordPress, that I linked to above, that explains everything in more detail. You can also follow them on Instagram. I’m very excited for this book and if you are too go check out the Kickstarter campaign and maybe help them out! I’ll put some pictures from the book right below this so you can see just how eerily (wonderfully) similar they are to Scary Stories.