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Keishon
Joined: 13 Aug 2007
Posts: 64
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 Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| For me it was Dennis Lehane's Darkness, Take My Hand. It's more psychologically scary than supernatural scary. Those are the best kind. |
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Amanda DeWees
Joined: 20 Apr 2012
Posts: 16
Location: Atlanta
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| ladynaava wrote: | When I was child I had a horrid fear of ghosts.
Ghosts Belong to Me
Ghosts I have Been
Really scared me. I remember Ghosts I had been had the ghost of a girl/woman who drowned and they kept her head in a jar so someone might identify the body. Ghosts belong to me had a girl who drowned in a well, and her little dog died too. It frightened and upset me very much especially the little dog. It was so sad.
At any rate, those books, frightened me as a child.
While I don't believe in ghosts anymore, I still remember how afraid and upset I was by those books. Funny thing is my sister had no issue reading them, but I was way too sensative. =-) |
Those are two of my childhood favorites!  Peck later resumed writing about Blossom Culp and her psychic powers, but the newer books seemed more kid-friendly, with more humor and less darkness--there was less of the disturbing material like the boy drowning on the Titanic, the visions of WWI, and the things you mentioned.
It seems like there was a mini-genre of books about evil dolls when I was a kid. I remember being traumatized by A Candle in Her Room, about a wooden doll who brings misery to more than one generation, and fascinated but distressed by a Jumeau revenge doll in Bella. Then there was Revenge of the Dolls, that had such creepy cover art I can't even remember the story; the image of those dead black button eyes is what stayed with me. <shiver> |
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MrsFairfax
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 1065
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Amanda DeWees wrote: |
It seems like there was a mini-genre of books about evil dolls when I was a kid. I remember being traumatized by A Candle in Her Room, about a wooden doll who brings misery to more than one generation, |
YES! The doll's name was Dido. More nightmares than I can count.
Not a doll, but decades later I can't see a gazing ball without thinking of Patricia Clapp's Jane-Emily. Still refuse to have one in my yard.
_________________
Binocular vision, no need to hop, and an ever-so-much easier time of it climbing ladders.
- James Cobham in Freedom & Necessity |
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kari
Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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Kari the children's librarian logging in. Mild spoilers below.
Ruth M. Arthur wrote A Candle in her Room and a bunch of other gothic romances for older girls or YA that I loved. While Candle, feauturing the evil doll Dido, is probably the scariest, her other books are worth looking up as well. I also love the pen and ink illustrations by Margery Gill. I think you would have to look for the books online or make special requests at a library in order to find them. The heroines are always teen or pre-teen girls in unusual circumstances in Europe, who run into a ghost or evil power such as the doll. Some light romance with interesting boys usually takes place in the stories. The heroine of Candle loses the boy she loves to her evil sister who has been "possessed" by the doll. (The book is divided into three segments, featuring three separate generations whose lives are changed for the worse by Dido's influence.)
Probably the single-most frequent question that I've EVER heard from kids during almost 24 years at my job is, "Where are the scary books?" |
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D Rogers
Joined: 31 Jul 2009
Posts: 150
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:09 am Post subject: Scariest Story |
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| Keishon wrote: | | For me it was Dennis Lehane's Darkness, Take My Hand. It's more psychologically scary than supernatural scary. Those are the best kind. |
That's good to know--I am using it in the fall in a course I am teaching on the detective novel. My students will love it (I have used another Lehane book in my class--Mystic River--and many of my students liked that novel best of all the books we read).
Denise |
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ChrisReader
Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 685
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| Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 10:13 am Post subject: |
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Amanda DeWees said | Quote: | | It seems like there was a mini-genre of books about evil dolls when I was a kid. I remember being traumatized by A Candle in Her Room, about a wooden doll who brings misery to more than one generation, |
Thank you for posting that! I remembered the book vividly from reading it as a child but never remembered the name. It had a huge effect on me when I first read it. I remember being utterly confused at first when it made the first "time jump" and had to wrap my mind around what happened with the sister and the boyfriend.
MrsFairfax said | Quote: | | YES! The doll's name was Dido. More nightmares than I can count. |
Yes! And it was all I could think of when the British singer Dido hit it big, that creepy wooden doll!
| Quote: | | Not a doll, but decades later I can't see a gazing ball without thinking of Patricia Clapp's Jane-Emily. |
This was one of my favorite books as a child. I must have read it a hundred times. It was one of the first books I read as child that said "yes there is a ghost and not just a ghost but a malevolent child ghost."
Patricia Clapp was a wonderful author. Her book "Constance, A Story of Early Plymouth" was another book I read until the cover fell off.
maryskl said
| Quote: | | Helter Skelter...For years after I read Helter Skelter, I could not listen to the Beatles' White Album |
I don't think a book has ever made me feel more paranoid than this one. I remember scaring myself silly with it. It had very "restrained" photos in it (the bodies were whited out- you just saw the outline) and somehow it was almost even more terrifying. If that book won't make you go recheck the locks on your windows and doors I don't know what will.
"The Apprentice" by Tess Gerritsen had a similar effect on me. |
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Amanda DeWees
Joined: 20 Apr 2012
Posts: 16
Location: Atlanta
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| Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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| ChrisReader wrote: | Amanda DeWees said | Quote: | | It seems like there was a mini-genre of books about evil dolls when I was a kid. I remember being traumatized by A Candle in Her Room, about a wooden doll who brings misery to more than one generation, |
Thank you for posting that! I remembered the book vividly from reading it as a child but never remembered the name. It had a huge effect on me when I first read it. I remember being utterly confused at first when it made the first "time jump" and had to wrap my mind around what happened with the sister and the boyfriend.
MrsFairfax said | Quote: | | YES! The doll's name was Dido. More nightmares than I can count. |
Yes! And it was all I could think of when the British singer Dido hit it big, that creepy wooden doll!
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Thank goodness it wasn't just me. At the time I read Candle I hadn't heard the story of Dido and Aeneas, so my first association with the name "Dido" from that point on has always been "evil doll badness." |
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MrsFairfax
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 1065
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| Posted: Tue May 22, 2012 10:33 am Post subject: |
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| ChrisReader wrote: |
maryskl said
| Quote: | | Helter Skelter...For years after I read Helter Skelter, I could not listen to the Beatles' White Album |
I don't think a book has ever made me feel more paranoid than this one. I remember scaring myself silly with it. It had very "restrained" photos in it (the bodies were whited out- you just saw the outline) and somehow it was almost even more terrifying. |
I sneaked that book out of my sister's room, and you're absolutely right about those whited-out bodies. I got caught with it only a few chapters in and Mom took it away. I was too weirded out by the photos to steal it back.
_________________
Binocular vision, no need to hop, and an ever-so-much easier time of it climbing ladders.
- James Cobham in Freedom & Necessity |
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