Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

        I have to say, it's a pretty great time to be a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark fan. After an ill-advised decision by the publisher years ago to replace the books' iconically eerie Stephen Gammell illustrations with tamer, less disturbing artwork by Brett Helquist, the original versions have been reissued to bookstores everywhere. Hollywood wants a piece of that sweet Scary Stories pie (don't ask what's in it), and there's a major motion picture produced by Guillermo Del Toro on the way which, judging by the teasers, looks amazing . There's even a documentary coming out chronicling the creation of the series and examining its lasting cultural impact. 38 years after Alvin Schwartz's first volume began shocking the senses of countless readers, the series' legacy is still going strong.      Perhaps most unexpectedly, there was a recent announcement that a new volume of the series is coming soon! Well, sort of. New Scary Stories to Tell in t

The generally accepted rule of trilogies is that the third installment is almost inevitably the weakest. This makes sense: the first installment is bursting with new creativity, the second is able to refine things and boost them to new heights, and by the time part three rolls around, some degree of repetition sets in, and the excitements tends to wear off. Still, there are some advantages to being the third in a series: the groundwork has been laid, there is a certain comfort in the series' familiarity, and there is still plenty of room for improvement and exploration. And so, in this vein, we have Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones . It's definitely the weakest of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series (for reference, see my POWER RANKINGS of the first and second books in the series), but it's still wholly enjoyable. There are some uninspiring elements, to be sure, but the good parts more than make up for it. It's Return of the Jedi . And there&

         I've been reading the books in the Flowers in the Attic series lately (three down, two to go), thanks to my viewing and enjoyment of the Lifetime original film based on the first book. The jury is still out as to whether or not this was a bad decision, though I will say that summarizing the plots of the second and third book out loud to my mother made me sound like an absolute raving lunatic. Unquestionably, though, the books' subject matter, while largely absurd, is unrelenting in its grim, sordid nature. As such, I'm going for a shift in tone today to talk about the pinnacle of levity: a joke book. Certainly something as mirthful as a textual compilation of time-honored humor must be worlds away from the debilitating trauma of V.C. Andrews's seminal works, right? Well hold the phone there, Ma Bell , because the gears of this joke machine are oiled by tears.      Let's start with the author. Does his name look familiar? If you read this blog regularl

     As I continue my quest to present the world's most thorough and scholarly examination of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series of youth horror books (having already written Power Rankings articles for the first and second books as well as an opinion piece about the audio books ), I would be remiss to ignore another book that is closely related to the series in spirit if not name. If I'm going to write this series of articles, after all, I must do it correctly. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.      So imagine: you're a folklorist that enjoys frightening children, and you're doing a pretty bang-up job of ensuring that the nation's youth can only slumber in nightmare-haunted fits and starts. But there's a problem: what about the particularly young children? The ones that can read but whose parents still shield them from imagery of blood-soaked corpses? What is to be done about them? The answer to these questions is fright t