Tuesday, October 31, 2017

My Favorite Spooky Stories

If I even get a glimpse of a scary book cover, I get nightmares.

I'm a baby about spooky stories.

When you are a school librarian, you learn fast that children love spooky stories.

I feel compelled to share spooky stories in the library every year.

Here are some I read in my elementary school library.

Level of Spookiness: 1
Children feel powerful when they can make a big, green monster go away.

Level of Spookiness: 2
Lots of spooky things pop out of the pages of this book.

Level of Spookiness: 3
This little old lady isn't scared of spooky things, so children feel braver, too.

Level of Spookiness: 4
This one is brand new. It's by the author/illustrator team that brought us Creepy Carrots.
It was a huge hit with my primary students last week.

Level of Spookiness: 5
The Viper is really an extended joke. Poor Peggy! The phone keeps ringing,
and it's always the Viper, reminding her that he will be coming soon.
Teachers love the story because it brings in time concepts and the dictionary.
Kids love it because it takes some thinking to figure out just who the Viper really is.

Level of Spookiness: 6
La Llorona is an old ghost story told along the Texas border. 
I especially love it because it is in English and Spanish.

Level of Spookiness: 7
This is the scariest I get with my primary school students.
Believe you me, it is scary.
I always warn them not to read Chapter 4, The Girl with the Green Ribbon.
Of course, it is the first chapter they go to when they check it out.

Level of Spookiness: 8
When I was in fifth grade, librarian Catherine Munson Foster came to my elementary school and told local ghost stories. The most powerful one of all, for me, was the ghost of Brit Bailey. He haunted, according to legend, a spot just down the highway from where I lived. I love to share this story with my students because it has a local connection.

Level of Spookiness: 9
I got this book in a Scholastic book order in elementary school. I took it along on a Girl Scout campout and read the stories aloud. We were some scared Girl Scouts.
I have shared some of the stories with my fifth and sixth graders. These were terrifying.

Level of Spookiness: 10
This is about as scary as it gets at an elementary school. This book and its two sequels has been on dozens of banned book lists. The stories are very, very scary and the illustrations are scary, too.
I've found even sixth graders are spooked by these.


Do you have any scary stories you read with students? I hope you will share them with me!



Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists.
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19 comments:

  1. I love you collection of spooky books. We have a copy of Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski in Norwegian...I bought it for my son a few years ago because my sister had a copy when she was growing up in UK and has been around since early 1980's.

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  2. Ooh nice! Lots of new to me ones! All except the last one! Lol! Great picks!

    Here's my Tuesday Post

    Have a GREAT day!

    Old Follower :)

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  3. What a fabulous collection of scary stories! I, like you, don't do too creepy or scary because I'm too much of a wuss, suffering from nightmares on and off throughout my life. So I don't tend to pay too much attention to Halloween:). Have a great day at school with the children...

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  4. I dont mind stories. I don't like pictures.

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  5. At the moment I'm reading The little Vampire with my students. They really enjoy it! One of my students asked if he could borrow my book during break so he can read further. Yay! :)

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  6. I don't think my daughter knows whether she likes spooky stories or not. LOL These are all great, Deb. I like how you gave them spookiness levels. That helps a lot. I'm copying down these titles to read to my daughter now and in coming years. Thanks for sharing!

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  7. I've been volunteering at the book fair at my son's school this week and Creepy Pair of Underwear sold out on day 1! The librarian was ordering more before lunch! I love Go Away Big Green Monster. The public library did that one around Halloween at story time when my son was preschool age and it was such a hit! He's not a big spooky lover but last year we discovered Bunnicula and we absolutely loved it. We listened to the audio on a long car ride and just had the best time. Great list!

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  8. Thnx for stopping by!
    I haven't read any of the books u listed. But I think I might read two of them.

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  9. I haven't read any of these books but they're about the only level of horror I could actually read; very very light.
    Great picks for this week. :D

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  10. Wish I had someone in the age range of Creepy Pair of Underwear, would love to share it. All the other's look really good as well.

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  11. Great list. I was one of those kids who would only read spooky or funny stories. Everything else was boring.

    Aj @ Read All The Things!

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  12. Awesome list! I really loved reading Scary Stories to tell in the Dark series!

    Here’s my TTT!

    Ronyell @ Rabbit Ears Book Blog

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  13. This is an awesome list! I remember absolutely loving The Little Old Lady Who was Not Afraid of Anything. Seeing it again brings back such good childhood memories of family reading time.
    Elena @ TheNovelistics

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  14. My daughter and I just checked out the Creepy Underwear one! It's such a fun story. We also love There's a Monster at the End of this Book.

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  15. The one scary book my daughter liked when she was little was Bunicula :-)

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  16. LOVE THESE! My nephew and I read together after school every day and he will love some of these... it was a bit of a struggle finding Halloween books this year... Bonesville I think is the only one we picked up...

    I'm a little behind but I love top 10 Tuesday... Here is my post if you're interested in my choices <3 https://wp.me/p3LRfZ-6Vt

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  17. Love this list! When I was a kid I loved spooky stories, but as an adult, not so much anymore :)

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  18. I experienced the reading of The Viper by Ms. Nance's evil twin, Mrs. Zance the other day when I went to pick up the last of the free Halloween books for my LFL. Two really smart young boys kept yelling, "It's the WIPER, THE WIPER!" The way she led them to come to that conclusion and understanding was amazing! A good time was had by ALL--students, me, and Ms. Zance!!!

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