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Friday flashback: Youthful chills and thrills March 5, 2010

Posted by kmcalear in Book Review, Book Series, Children Books, Friday Flashback, Musings.
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Today I wanted to start one of our new “regular”, or in our case “semi-regular” postings. Wednesdays have always been our book review days, and Friday is going to be a Friday Flashback. We’ve noticed that our previous blogs from past years are being commented on over on blog.com, so Jana and I decided to re-run some of the former blogs on Fridays.

So without further ado, the first Friday Flashback: Youthful thrills and chills.

I was thinking the other day about how I ended up with a fascination for sci-fi, fantasy and the darker side of literature. My Dad reads mostly John Grisham and Michael Crichton political thrillers. I read them too, but in a book store my feet just naturally carry me into the fantasy section (or the mystery section too, but we’ll get to my other addiction another day.) Now Dad will watch fantasy and sci-fi with me, but it’s not his first choice. My mother describes all science fiction as “It’s all depressing, with all those ugly people!” Vulcans! Ugly!? Gasp!

So how did I end up loving Star Trek and tales of vampires?

It just happened.

In his book, On Writing Stephen King wrote “I was born with a fascination for the unquiet grave” (paraphrased). That really rang true with me. My youthful reading consisted of Bunnicula (a vampire bunny rabbit) and as many ‘Scary Stories to tell in the Dark’ as I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter that I spent as much time with the covers pulled over my head as sleeping, I couldn’t get enough of the thrills and chills.

One book I particularly remember was called ‘Wait til Helen Comes’. I read it 5 or 6 times as a kid, and it scared me every single time. I should go back and read it again, see if the youthful terror still gets me!

Inevitably reading turned to creating and my younger siblings became research subjects as I experimented with my own ghost and goblin creations. They, and the neighborhood kids, soon joined me in my terror filled sleepless nights and I found that being the agent of that terror was fun! Apparently they did too, since they kept coming back for more.

There’s something magical about a “scary story” that brings us back to Halloweens of our youth when familiar trees became a little more sinister, every bridge might just hide a troll and the strange house down the street hides witchy secrets. It bypasses the mundane and makes reality just a little more fantastic.

So my ‘writer’s advice’ or ‘reader’s advice’ for today is pick up some of those children’s books and young adult books you loved as a child (or some you managed to miss out on).

My list:

  • Scary Stories to tell in the Dark (Horror, elementary)
  • Wait til Helen Comes Mary Downing Hahn (Horror, upper elementary)
  • Bunnicula series James Howe (Horror, upper elementary)
  • Anything Roald Dahl, Especially The Witches (Horror/Macabre)
  • The Redwall series, Brian Jacques (Fantasy)
  • The Wild Magic series Tamora Pierce (Fantasy)
  • The Dark Moon series Meredith Ann Pierce (Fantasy)
  • Anything RL Stine. (Maybe not the best writer, but definitely some creative work) (Horror)
  • In a dark dark Room Alvin Scwartz (Children’s ‘spooky’)
  • I’m Going to Eat You Matt Mitter (Children’s ‘spooky’)