Home » Posts tagged "Extremities"

Teen Read Week: Stories to Give You the Shivers

As I’ve said in the past, what better audience could there be for short stories than the teen audience? For every teen who loves hauling around gigantic tomes, there is another who prefers to consume reading material one small, satisfying, bite at a time.  October is the season for short and scary stories, in my opinion– a fall campfire is the perfect occasion for the right tale,  or a sleepover could involve tempting “Bloody Mary” out of the mirror.  There are so many opportunities to fit a scary story in as we approach the day of the dead.

So here’s a short list of short story collections you (and by you I mean anyone, but especially teens) can check out if you’re seeking out a story to give you the shivers.

 

    The Restless Dead: Ten Original Tales of the Supernatural, edited by Deborah Noyes. With authors like Kelly Link and Annette Curtis Klause contributing, you will surely find something here to give you the creeps.

 

 Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror,  edited by R.L. Stine.  This collection has an interesting collection of writers, including F.Paul Wilson and Heather Graham, who write thrillers for adults, and Peg Kehret, who writes middle grade mysteries and suspense. So it’s not surprising that the collection is somewhat of a mixed bag– but there’s also quite a lot of variety!

 

 All Hallows’ Eve: 13 Stories by Vivian Vande Velde. This is an individual collection, and again, these are stories of the supernatural and spooky rather than the gory. Vivian Vande Velde is a fantastic writer and this could be a good way to see if you like her stuff before trying out a longer work. And, of course, this collection is thematically about Halloween, so how could I leave it out?

 

 Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. One of the stories in this book, “The Wrong Grave”, is also in The Restless Dead, mentioned above. So if you tried that and liked it, definitely pick up Pretty Monsters.  These are not typical scary stories, but they’ll definitely creep you out!  Kelly Link is a favorite author of mine, and I really recommend this one.

 

 Extremities: Tales of Death, Murder, and Revenge by David Lubar is his first venture into the young adult genre. We’re giving a copy away this week, that’s how good it is!

 

 Ghostly Gallery: Eleven Spooky Stories for Young People edited by Alfred Hitchcock. This is just one of a series of short story anthologies that Hitchcock published in the 1970’s and that were available in libraries and through Scholastic book orders in the 1980s as well. It’s really a tragedy that these volumes and others like them are no longer in print, as most of the early exposure I had to scary stories was through these types of books.

 

 Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories edited by Roald Dahl. You may think of Roald Dahl as a children’s author, but he also wrote for adults and really, even in his children’s books, proves that he is a master of the macabre. His choices here include many older, classic, ghost stories, from authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton, and Robert Aickman. These are literary horror stories, some quite frightening, so I’d recommend it for older teens.

 

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. These stories have the eerie feeling of truth to them, possibly because of McKissack’s introduction, where she describes listening to the stories the adults around her told when she was a child. This is a Caldecott Award winner, and also a Coretta Scott King award winner, but beyond that, it’s just really good storytelling, made even better by the dramatic illustrations. I have this on Kindle, and I’ve got to say, this is one of the books that you really need to hold in your hands and see the artwork complementing the story across a double page spread, to truly appreciate. Don’t let the award for children’s book illustration fool you: this book is often used with and appreciated by middle school aged kids and older.

 

 The Scary Stories Treasury: Three Books to Chill Your Bones, Collected From Folklore, edited by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.  Make sure you have the books illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I don’t care how old you are, these are still scary. And I’m definitely not the only one to think so– read this article and you’ll see what an impact these books make.

I really can’t follow that up with anything better, so I’ll stop now and give you a chance to track these down and give yourself a fright!

It’s Giveaway Time! Teen Read Week is Here!


Congratulations on joining us for Teen Read Week. This year the theme is “Seek the Unknown”, so what better place is there to be than smack dab in the middle of the horror genre? From cosmic horror to creatures of the night, the horror genre is filled with unknowns.

Today, we’re having a giveaway! David Lubar, best known for his “Weenies” books for children, has crossed over to the dark side of YA     fiction after many years of struggle, as he documented here (link). I wrote about this essay a while back (link)  and the good folks from Tor Teen contacted me and asked me if I would like for them to provide a copy of his new book for review or set up a giveaway. The answer, of course, was “YES!”  They’ve probably been tapping their toes waiting for the review, but that will go up later today, and in the meantime, WE HAVE A GIVEAWAY!

The book is called Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge and it has really amazing cover art and excellent, creepy, interior artwork. And it also has thirteen chilling tales inside the covers. For a teen who’s just growing into the genre and maybe ready to move a little past the Scary Stories books, this is a perfect choice. So let’s give teens the gift of reading horror! All Hallows’ Read is just around the corner.

All this can be yours if you comment and tell me your favorite scary book.  People don’t seem to comment here often, and if they did, maybe I’d hold more giveaways. It’s really not that hard, folks. You’re already sitting at the keyboard (or touch screen, whatever) so just do it. Let me give this book away!

 

Happy Teen Read Week!

 

 

Short Is Good: David Lubar and Why Short Stories Are Awesome

David Lubar is the author of many children’s books, including some great books to introduce to kids who love scary books, such as the Weenies books and the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series, and he now has published a “young adult” collection of horror stories called Extremities (the publisher failed to send us a copy for review, so I can’t tell you what that actually means in terms of age appropriateness).  It wasn’t an easy thing– he wrote about how difficult it was to get a publisher to show interest in short stories in this essay.

I think publishers in general have missed out on the appeal of the short story, especially for kids and young adults. A short story can have a solid impact that a novel makes too diffuse (if you want to see how awful translating a short story into a novel can be go check out Isaac Asimov’s short story “Nightfall” (I first read this in high school) and then read the novel version, Nightfall, co-written with Robert Silverberg (or not– how two giants of science fiction managed to make such a mess of such a masterpiece is beyond me). When a short story ends suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a cheat. It takes your breath away. You have to muse on that last moment– did the princess choose the lady or the tiger?  If a novel ends suddenly, it’s annoying– I want things tied up.

The short story requires economy of language. Every word must count, and what is left out can be as important as what is visible on the page. A collection of short stories provides variety. You can flip through and find something that probably will fit your mood. Even if one story doesn’t float your boat, it doesn’t mean you’re sunk with hundreds of pages. The next one might be fantastic. A short story can be read in one sitting. Someone who finishes what she’s reading builds a sense of mastery. It’s not required that you slog through a thousand page novel for that feeling of “Aha!”

Lubar wrote that he felt that one reason he wasn’t able to sell the concept was because, although he described it as an anthology of horror stories, not all of them had supernatural forces. That may matter if we’re niggling over the details of genre– Becky Siegel Spratford’s definition of horror states that it must have a supernatural creature or aspect. But it mostly doesn’t matter to the readers. Maybe it’s better to call them scary stories than horror stories, if genre definition matters that much. We receive anthologies and short story collections all the time (check out this link to our YA anthologies page and this link to our adult anthologies page). Some have supernatural horrors, some have human horrors, and some have both. Kids and adults both like short and scary stories, and a short story collection is a great place to take risks. Publishers, take notice.