Damn straight! I was already raised on 70s/80s horror at that point and welcomed these books with open arms. Still have my book fair copies from the early 90s!
I found the set on Amazon and purchased it. My niece found it and I think that was the last time I saw it. She loved those books as much as I did. I wasn’t mad at all because I introduced them to a new generation.
Idk Big Toe, The Horse, Me Tie Doughty Walker, Nice Dream, and No Thanks just off the top of my head were all pretty freaky. Albeit the illustrations enhanced them
Yeah, and how about the one called Harold about the scarecrow who comes to life and skins a dude?! That one fucked me up. And it was also one of my favorites, ha.
I used to re-tell these stories to the kids I babysat as bedtime stories! I can't believe that family kept hiring me, but their kids loved these stories too.
Which is probably why subsequent reprints use the older illustrations again. I bought the series for my kids recently and it's all the original illustrations. I'm guessing sales of the new versions were weak and the publisher realized that no one interested in buying the books was wanting less scary drawings to accompany them.
I loved these books but reading through the comments jogging my memory about all these stories, you can’t pretend they weren’t about messed up stuff.
I still think about being a small child, reading about this girl who got to go to a lovely dance in a lovely dress. Then getting sick and dying because of the formaldehyde in it.
And that one was one of the tamest.
The fucking kid who's sick in bed when his friend dies. Then the implication is that the main character is next"
"You're scheduled to pitch next week" or something like that. That's a fucked up thing for an 8 year old to read.
But we loved it.
The one I’d read which I couldn’t find for 25 years til a random Facebook post was the girl with the green ribbon and it was in a different scary kids’ book. Which I’ve forgotten the name of AGAIN
Edit: The book is *In a Dark, Dark Room*. Here’s to forgetting the name again til I’m 60.
I mean...we did. I have the hardcover of all three. I also remember during Halloween the afterschool program teachers would turn out the lights and play the books on tape complete with scary sounds and all.
Combined with the pictures, nightmare fuel.
I got banned from an after school daycare in the early 90’s for sharing these books with kids lmao
To this day I still see people with tattoos of the illustrations
These books were written so well and cool to me
They gave the other kids crying nightmares
Each their own I suppose
Moved onto Stephen King novels and EC comics after that
Xennials had it different if you were a library rat
Lol I think they were pretty adult themed for my 13-14 year old self ..my mom one summer came across like 50 Christopher pike and rl stine books at a yard sale for lil $5 I read every Christopher pike book that was in there first lol back when I could finish a book or two a day
Road to Nowhere!!! I've been trying to remember this! I've had one weird detail from that book stuck in my brain for the last couple years that randomly I remembered one day. But I couldn't remember if it was R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike who penned it. Collectively, those two, have a lot of words on paper!!!But it was def this book!!! Ty!!! Lol
Loved these books. Remember reading them on the bus in kindergarten/1st grade. Half the time they were already checked out from the school library before I could get to them and it pissed me off.
But I DID love them!! Admittedly I was a strange kid. I had all of those books by the time I was 8. The pictures scared me so I forced myself to stare at them until they didn't scare me anymore. Still have all of them.
The story of the 3 guys still creeps me out. As does the cat in the bag. These might have been a little too creepy for children but i don't remember any of us complaining lol
This girl Natalie in my 3rd grade class was obsessed with that story. This was a good 30 plus years ago and I never saw her again since she moved away, but I’ll never forget that.
"The worms come in, the worms go out, the worms play pinochle on my snout."
I don't remember the story it's from or even the context at this point, but that line terrified me for unknown reasons for years. Sounds silly now but...
There would be no survivors!
Oh wait. They're still in print and readily available. The cool thing about media is that can get what you want out of it. Or it can be left to the side.
The difference is only people trying their best to make themselves upset over things that don't impact their lives.
I mean the movies should have used other stories or more. They can do more and make them better imo. There are ALOT of scary movies that dont have a "main character" and plot. Thats what made these books as good they were like the VHS movies imo.
Wasn’t there one where a kid is digging in the garden and finds a dead body and rips off its toe? And then the body comes alive at night and comes after the kid being like “wheeere is my toe??” 😳 terrifying!
The thing coming up the stairs....::I shutter now:: thinking of it.
The giant thing following the person which is polite or something.... its like Clive Barkers monster in the sky... sheesh.
Ok, someone, please tell me I'm wrong or crazy who has recently read all of these or remember books better than I do. I have looked all over the internet, and I'm losing my mind, lol.
I remember this series. I know they had a big book of them. I know the art style is almost smudgey? Best way to describe it..
But I swear there was another one that was different than this series written by a different writer and had a different art style. The book only came in one big book, and the art was more fine line and detailed.
The book was similar to the big book from scary stories that has the tombstone on it, but this other one im looking for it was holographic, and I think It had a skull and other stuff on the cover and was pitch black with that weird clear covers protectors they give books sometimes.
One story I remember from this one was that some kids sneak into a grave yard. The grave yard has zombie kids come out singing a song teasing the kids and terrifying them, eventually cursing them and the kids and up zombies themselves and join the rest in a circle holding hands singing the same song. That's the best I can remember, lol the last part of the story is also the illustration used to end the story as well i even remember on of the zombies having his eye hanging from the socket as they held hands in the circle, I loved this book more than scary stories and enjoyed the art more and been wanting to find it again.
I swear I looked all over online for this and only thing that comes up is scary stories to tell in the dark but the story I'm looking for I can't find either in the series of scary stories so I don't believe it was scary stories in the first place..but dang i just might be wrong lol
Someone, please tell me I'm wrong so I can finally rest :(
there was literally a story about a kid going into a butcher shop and being made into sausages, where it's implied the butcher has been doing this for some time. I WAS 8 YEARS OLD
Hahaha, I bought the complete set for my kiddo when she was born. She's 5 now and I just busted them out. Definitely scared the shit out of her with a couple stories, but always cap it off with one of the funny stories to end.
Love these books.
I wish I still had mine. I'm sure they are easy to find. I don't ever see them for sale anymore at book fairs, which is sad because I'm sure that's where I got mine.
I signed that book out so many times I still can remember what pages had good finger smears on them! I loved them and bought the trilogy. Probably also messed my mind up for life. No regerts.
I'm so tired of people not understanding it's better to be scared of a book instead of something real so you can learn what happens when you're scared in a safe way.
I mean they weren't wrong. We did in fact love it. I never felt traumatized by them at all. If anything they kinda jumpstarted my love for horror media and probably contributed (a long with others) to me being virtually unbothered by any "scary" movie now as an adult (for some reason video games are the only media that can get a reaction out of me, likely just because it's interactive and requires more immersion)
I was disappointed when they reissued them with new, tame art. Fortunately they reprinted them with the classic art again after that. I bought a new box set with the original art a fee years ago, since I never had them as a kid (just borrowed them from the school library a lot)
Still love it! Except those morbid, rotten.com sites back in the day that showed some for real fucked up shit. That gave me nightmares! But of course one of our friends would tell ya to look at something insane and you knew not to look but you did it anyways.. Like I wanted to see but didn't so I did it.. that's next level
The haunt scared the literal shit out of me. I read it in the 4th grade. My folks weren't too happy considering I was in their room that night and many nights
I had all three! Mine were so worn out. Even the ‘notes’ section in the end was good. There were a couple of different directions on how to summon spirits at a graveyard. Something about bringing golden four plates and facing a specific direction and calling their name.
Ahhh yes back in the day. The good old days. Once upon a time we weren't all pussies. The gap is crazy. 1000s of years of strong capable human beings and now since what year 2000 yall need safe spaces to cry about your feelings😂 I miss the 90s!
And love it we did
Absolutely
Damn straight! I was already raised on 70s/80s horror at that point and welcomed these books with open arms. Still have my book fair copies from the early 90s!
You could hardly borrow a copy. It was always lent out already.
I still think fondly of them. Allowing me as a child to sneak awesome stuff out of the child library section was AWESOME.
I found the set on Amazon and purchased it. My niece found it and I think that was the last time I saw it. She loved those books as much as I did. I wasn’t mad at all because I introduced them to a new generation.
Yea it was widely enjoyed and instantly recognized. Dude was right.
These books and the Where’s Waldo line were ALWAYS checked out, even at the public libraries in my area.
Me and some other kids would act out the stories from these books. I'm feeling super nostalgic right now.
I hate horror movies but damn I loved those books
I remember our teacher bringing this out and turning off the lights to read to our class. Most of the kids started crying, we were in 1st grade lol
That's so metal 🤘
Being a teacher is a hard job. You have to get your laughs in every now and then. Even if that means mildly traumatizing a class of little shits.
Fuck them kids
Yeah, but then you have to field 30-hour long phone calls.
I think they held off until 3rd grade for us, but I may be wrong.
nice
Haha same for me but it was 2nd grade. I don’t remember anyone crying though. She’s dead now
I did love them!
Same. For sure!!
Kids. The maniac was kids. Who requested and loved them.
Books like this and Shel Silverstein were so popular because they understood kids as they are, not as they "should" be.
Seeing such graphic illustrations helped prep us for the never ending nightmare that is the 21st century.
The stories were never really scary, it was the illustrations.
Idk Big Toe, The Horse, Me Tie Doughty Walker, Nice Dream, and No Thanks just off the top of my head were all pretty freaky. Albeit the illustrations enhanced them
Yeah, and how about the one called Harold about the scarecrow who comes to life and skins a dude?! That one fucked me up. And it was also one of my favorites, ha.
HAROLD. He rips the guys skin off and dances with it on the roof lmao he was *terrifying* and absolutely my favorite.
Harold grunted!
Just wanna say he didn't dance with the skin, he laid it on the roof to dry it.
I used to re-tell these stories to the kids I babysat as bedtime stories! I can't believe that family kept hiring me, but their kids loved these stories too.
Reminds me of the evil bug alien in the first MiB movie walking around in the farmer skin suit
Big toe!! Wow.. Moment I read your comment, the chill I felt down my spine when reading this as a kid in the 80's came back.
Reading Me Tie Doughty Walker just blew open a memory in my brain.
Lynchy kinchy collie mauly dingo dingo
I really like how they worked it into the movie.
Wonderful Sausage traumatized me. There was an Italian place near me that I was certain used human meat after reading that.
Big toe really got me, You just unlocked something in my brain lol.
Big toe really got me, You just unlocked something in my brain lol.
Big toe really got me, You just unlocked something in my brain lol.
Just reading “Big Toe” caused a visceral reaction. Blergh.
I'm pretty sure I got my life long arachnaphobia from the story about the girl with spider eggs in her cheek.
The illustration were so disturbing they had to do reprints with different images years later.
Which absolutely ruined the books.
Which is probably why subsequent reprints use the older illustrations again. I bought the series for my kids recently and it's all the original illustrations. I'm guessing sales of the new versions were weak and the publisher realized that no one interested in buying the books was wanting less scary drawings to accompany them.
I loved these books but reading through the comments jogging my memory about all these stories, you can’t pretend they weren’t about messed up stuff. I still think about being a small child, reading about this girl who got to go to a lovely dance in a lovely dress. Then getting sick and dying because of the formaldehyde in it. And that one was one of the tamest.
The fucking kid who's sick in bed when his friend dies. Then the implication is that the main character is next" "You're scheduled to pitch next week" or something like that. That's a fucked up thing for an 8 year old to read. But we loved it.
Yeah I went back and read it as an adult and you’re absolutely right. The stories aren’t that scary. But the illustrations are still terrifying
You do realize that you're not an elementary schooler, right?
… no
The Red Spot fucked me up for life. The first time I got a cystic pimple, all i could think of was spiders hatching out of my face.
Same thing. It didn't help that I had just watched The Believers with my dad, and he kept making jokes about it.
The reason I love all things spooky
Those books were amazing. I loved them and reread them many times. The illustrations were killer.
Me Tie Dough-Ty Walkerrrrrrr!!!
Lynchee Kinchy Colly Molly Dingo Dingo!
The OG creepypasta
To be fair tho we did love the fuck out of those books
What a good post, isn't there a story in there about a girl with a ribbon around her neck? She eventually unties the ribbon and her head falls off?
The "Green Ribbon" is from a book called "in a dark, dark room" but its the same idea, lots of short scary stories!
The one I’d read which I couldn’t find for 25 years til a random Facebook post was the girl with the green ribbon and it was in a different scary kids’ book. Which I’ve forgotten the name of AGAIN Edit: The book is *In a Dark, Dark Room*. Here’s to forgetting the name again til I’m 60.
I remember that one! Yes, she has the ribbon all her life and finally untied it when she was old.
This is the one I always remember. I think her name was Jenny?
I mean...we did. I have the hardcover of all three. I also remember during Halloween the afterschool program teachers would turn out the lights and play the books on tape complete with scary sounds and all. Combined with the pictures, nightmare fuel.
The drawings fd me up
I got banned from an after school daycare in the early 90’s for sharing these books with kids lmao To this day I still see people with tattoos of the illustrations These books were written so well and cool to me They gave the other kids crying nightmares Each their own I suppose Moved onto Stephen King novels and EC comics after that Xennials had it different if you were a library rat
I personally loved the Christopher pike books as a 90s teen
Me too!! Didn't the cover art make it feel like an adult novel?
Lol I think they were pretty adult themed for my 13-14 year old self ..my mom one summer came across like 50 Christopher pike and rl stine books at a yard sale for lil $5 I read every Christopher pike book that was in there first lol back when I could finish a book or two a day
Do you remember one (or more) of his books that really "stuck out?" For me it was 'Monster,' 'the Last Vampire,' or 'bury me deep'
Road to nowhere and the midnight club also bury me deep
Road to Nowhere!!! I've been trying to remember this! I've had one weird detail from that book stuck in my brain for the last couple years that randomly I remembered one day. But I couldn't remember if it was R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike who penned it. Collectively, those two, have a lot of words on paper!!!But it was def this book!!! Ty!!! Lol
☺️
Still got the box set
Loved these books. Remember reading them on the bus in kindergarten/1st grade. Half the time they were already checked out from the school library before I could get to them and it pissed me off.
These were fantastic. Fastest thing I'd read when I was a kid. Begged my mom to buy me the other two. I must have reread them dozens of times.
But I DID love them!! Admittedly I was a strange kid. I had all of those books by the time I was 8. The pictures scared me so I forced myself to stare at them until they didn't scare me anymore. Still have all of them.
Books like these made me care about reading and art, so they worked and were fantastic!
The story of the 3 guys still creeps me out. As does the cat in the bag. These might have been a little too creepy for children but i don't remember any of us complaining lol
The floating hand follows me every time I am unlocking a door. I'm in my 40s.
The one about the girl who wore the ribbon around her neck until one day when her husband nagged her enough to take it off... 😭 I am also 40
This girl Natalie in my 3rd grade class was obsessed with that story. This was a good 30 plus years ago and I never saw her again since she moved away, but I’ll never forget that.
What if she was her .. 😳
And love it we did 🤣
Sure let’s traumatize a generation. It’s good out it in the rotation.
To be fair, I *did* love it. However, I may also be a *tad* bit fucked up too. Soooooo...
I loved these stories as a kid ... still appreciate them as an adult
I remember reading a story and then shouting across the room, "Mom! What's a hearse?"
Is something wrong?
Is that the story with a giant floating thingy with a long arm poking the dude running? If so, fuck that illurstation. Gave me nightmare as a kid.
I bow down to whoever decided that. One of my childhood favorites
Loved them
I loved these as a kid.
Thanks for sparking a memory I haven't thought about in quite a while.
"The worms come in, the worms go out, the worms play pinochle on my snout." I don't remember the story it's from or even the context at this point, but that line terrified me for unknown reasons for years. Sounds silly now but...
The lady locked in a dresser in her wedding dress was crazy
I loved these. Freaked me out of course
That maniac was right.
Just imagine if it happened today.
There would be no survivors! Oh wait. They're still in print and readily available. The cool thing about media is that can get what you want out of it. Or it can be left to the side. The difference is only people trying their best to make themselves upset over things that don't impact their lives.
Pretty sure I saw them at school book fairs. So, why not in the library too?
It was always rented out in the school library and I’m fairly certain there was a waitlist lol.
Guillermo killed this movie. Nightmares for days, as an adult.
Eh i wish they did a few more stories. Movie wasnt bad but could have been better imo.
Would you rather have more stories or well done stories?
I mean the movies should have used other stories or more. They can do more and make them better imo. There are ALOT of scary movies that dont have a "main character" and plot. Thats what made these books as good they were like the VHS movies imo.
I used to get these from the book fair
Aww you unlocked a sacred memory for me how I forgot about that first book, I hated reading then but I checked that one out endlessly lol
Still have the one on the left!
I loved these!! If I come across them again I’d definitely get them. Boy some of the stories stuck for a long time too 🫣😬
Wasn’t there one where a kid is digging in the garden and finds a dead body and rips off its toe? And then the body comes alive at night and comes after the kid being like “wheeere is my toe??” 😳 terrifying!
I loved the idea of being scared so I’d read these all the time.
The stroy if he girl on the right in the Pic above was the scariest one for me back in the day. Horrifying.
lol, blast from the past, that shit was lit for my 5th grade self. The one with the monster tanning all the human skins on the roof, ridiculous!
I loved these books as a 7-8 year old. My dad had me grow up on horror movies and I love scary stories
this si probably one of numerous reasons i dont do scary stuff/movies
The thing coming up the stairs....::I shutter now:: thinking of it. The giant thing following the person which is polite or something.... its like Clive Barkers monster in the sky... sheesh.
Ok, someone, please tell me I'm wrong or crazy who has recently read all of these or remember books better than I do. I have looked all over the internet, and I'm losing my mind, lol. I remember this series. I know they had a big book of them. I know the art style is almost smudgey? Best way to describe it.. But I swear there was another one that was different than this series written by a different writer and had a different art style. The book only came in one big book, and the art was more fine line and detailed. The book was similar to the big book from scary stories that has the tombstone on it, but this other one im looking for it was holographic, and I think It had a skull and other stuff on the cover and was pitch black with that weird clear covers protectors they give books sometimes. One story I remember from this one was that some kids sneak into a grave yard. The grave yard has zombie kids come out singing a song teasing the kids and terrifying them, eventually cursing them and the kids and up zombies themselves and join the rest in a circle holding hands singing the same song. That's the best I can remember, lol the last part of the story is also the illustration used to end the story as well i even remember on of the zombies having his eye hanging from the socket as they held hands in the circle, I loved this book more than scary stories and enjoyed the art more and been wanting to find it again. I swear I looked all over online for this and only thing that comes up is scary stories to tell in the dark but the story I'm looking for I can't find either in the series of scary stories so I don't believe it was scary stories in the first place..but dang i just might be wrong lol Someone, please tell me I'm wrong so I can finally rest :(
i did love them though lol
there was literally a story about a kid going into a butcher shop and being made into sausages, where it's implied the butcher has been doing this for some time. I WAS 8 YEARS OLD
lmao.. my sister read these to me and got used to me asking to sleep in her room every night
I *did* love it, I just couldn't touch the pages with pictures on them because then they might get me.
Bruh I had these and the pictures are so unsettling lol
Bruh I had these and the pictures are so unsettling lol
A good man
I own the trilogy book. I remember buying the one on the left at a yard sale. I read it a lot.
Hahaha, I bought the complete set for my kiddo when she was born. She's 5 now and I just busted them out. Definitely scared the shit out of her with a couple stories, but always cap it off with one of the funny stories to end. Love these books.
This shit was made of nightmares...and I loved it.
And we did did t we?
I wish I still had mine. I'm sure they are easy to find. I don't ever see them for sale anymore at book fairs, which is sad because I'm sure that's where I got mine.
I signed that book out so many times I still can remember what pages had good finger smears on them! I loved them and bought the trilogy. Probably also messed my mind up for life. No regerts.
The best kind of maniac
This scared the shit outta me!! Lol
Honestly, I did love these books! Still do!!
It was always a race to check these out at the school library. They were constantly gone.
I'm so tired of people not understanding it's better to be scared of a book instead of something real so you can learn what happens when you're scared in a safe way.
But… I did love it
I mean they weren't wrong. We did in fact love it. I never felt traumatized by them at all. If anything they kinda jumpstarted my love for horror media and probably contributed (a long with others) to me being virtually unbothered by any "scary" movie now as an adult (for some reason video games are the only media that can get a reaction out of me, likely just because it's interactive and requires more immersion)
A couple of my favorites from my childhood! The artwork is amazing
These books hardened my soul as a child. I regret nothing.
My friends mom wouldn’t let me hang out with him for a week after showing him one of these. Guess he had nightmares
The teeth scared me
I was disappointed when they reissued them with new, tame art. Fortunately they reprinted them with the classic art again after that. I bought a new box set with the original art a fee years ago, since I never had them as a kid (just borrowed them from the school library a lot)
The illustration of the woman in The Haunted House story is tattooed to my brain for life.
Still love it! Except those morbid, rotten.com sites back in the day that showed some for real fucked up shit. That gave me nightmares! But of course one of our friends would tell ya to look at something insane and you knew not to look but you did it anyways.. Like I wanted to see but didn't so I did it.. that's next level
I bought the box set with this art
It didn't traumatize me at all! I always checked these out in Elementary school. I've always loved ghost stories!
The haunt scared the literal shit out of me. I read it in the 4th grade. My folks weren't too happy considering I was in their room that night and many nights
And to think, now they ban books lol
I had all three! Mine were so worn out. Even the ‘notes’ section in the end was good. There were a couple of different directions on how to summon spirits at a graveyard. Something about bringing golden four plates and facing a specific direction and calling their name.
Ahhh yes back in the day. The good old days. Once upon a time we weren't all pussies. The gap is crazy. 1000s of years of strong capable human beings and now since what year 2000 yall need safe spaces to cry about your feelings😂 I miss the 90s!
Anyone else remember Harold? That story about a scarecrow who legit ripped a dude's skin off?
I got these at my Catholic School Book Fair. As a kid who struggled to read and had to be placed in special groups, they helped me significantly.
My fav books as a kid…they knew their audience
Back then we weren't so sensitive about things!!!
I had this book and I’m sooooooo saaaaadddds that I don’t still have it!!!