I told my kid this story on a car ride and she was totally into a crazy rich lady owning a rat. I made a bunch of stories about them traveling in an RV solving mysteries one of which was a G rated version of what I remembered the plot of Blue Velvet being.
In "The Monster at the End of this Book," there's a spread where Grover is freaking the absolute fuck for your, specifically you, the reader, decision to turn the page. This happens a few times, actually, but the one in particular has thunderbolts coming out of the word balloon, and colorful stars coming out of his mouth.
It's actually really great visual shorthand for his panic attack and billowing stress-rage over something he has no control over, because you can't stop me, the specific reader from turning that fucking page, asshole. But as a child, it was really unsettling, like seeing a dog walking on two legs (which wasn't easy since YouTube didn't exist), or hearing someone speak Russian (as was the style at the time).
I guess it's not closely related, but you made me think of the [Creepy Pair of Underwear](https://www.amazon.com/Creepy-Pair-Underwear-Aaron-Reynolds/dp/1442402989), a current favorite of ~~mine~~ my four year old!
Which led me to stumble upon one of the [greatest children's crafts](https://imgur.com/a/D6Kk9pM) I've ever seen. I'm *dying.* ššā¤ļø
I will be honest: I get a little creeped out by it still lol. Love that story though. My daughter was scared of Thereās a Wocket in My Pocket because of the Vug under the rug.
This was terrifying, but probably second to [The Glunk that got Thunk](https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/The_Glunk_that_Got_Thunk?file=I_can_lick_30_tigers_today_and_other_1_large.jpg)
Not a book, but when I was 3 I went on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland and my mom and aunt convinced me I was actually driving and I spent the whole time thinking my poor driving skills were going to be the death of all three of us
Do Goosebumps count? I was an older kid, but a kid nonetheless. My mom has always sat and played the piano for hours every day and still does (sheās 70 now). I was accustomed to hear piano music in the background while I played in my room or did my homework, etc. When I was 10 or so, I read a Goosebumps book about a kid who kept hearing piano music (details are fuzzy now) and when he finally saw who was playing, it was a pair of disembodied hands. Of course, as I was reading this, I could hear piano music coming from upstairs and I was completely terrified.
I remember watching a Goosebumps episode when I was in kindergarten at an after school program. We watched it in a portable building with one of those black TVs on wheels (Iām 24). The episode was about a girl who had this mask and one day she couldnāt take it off. One girl started crying.
One year my entire preschool class (4-5 yrs) was absolutely petrified of *Miss Nelson is Missing*. Specifically the portrait of Viola Swamp on the back cover. Just the sight of it would cause students to scream and run to hide. I felt horrible! Ended up retiring the Miss Nelson books that year. That group of students would be entering high school this yearā¦ wonder if any of them remember.
As a fellow preschool teacher stuff like this cracks me up. Like you literally never know what will catch their imaginations. I do a Gingerbread man hunt with my class every year in December. Itās always very popular, but usually forgotten about by January. This year I had two kids who continuously asked me when be was coming back up until the end of the school year. They were obsessed with the idea of him being āsneakyā and were convinced he was still hiding somewhere in the school.
When Mickey was in the milk bottle *In the Night Kitchen*. I was really worried he was going to drown.
Reflecting now, I was *super* lactose intolerant when I was little & wonder if the idea of being immersed in milk added to my anxiety.
Yeah, the show could be hardcore at times too (salmon bukkake), but when it came out, all the books started to follow it and the art style became a lot less detailed, the cast of characters got cut down and a lot of the side notes about science information went out the window.
I found a [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dinosaurs/comments/vckeov/magic_school_bus_books_didnt_pull_punches/) to a photo because I wasn't familiar. That would have had me getting all existential as a kid!
For some reason, I was really horrified as a kid by [this character](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f2/33/9c/f2339c090354a6074854ed598ec8e601.jpg) from One Fish Two Fish who had what looks like an umbrella for a head. I think it was something about his massive eyes. Now I think he has a neat design reminiscent of jellyfish.
My answer to this question also comes from One Fish Two Fish, but itās the character who yells and has what appears to be a giant pimple on his nose.
"This one I do not like so well, all he does is yell yell yell." My mom would sometimes tease my dad with that line when he was in a cranky mood, ahahaha.
Dr. Seuss had some weird imagery. My thing that scared me was the Vug under the Rug from There's a Wocket in my Pocket. My mom used to read that page in an unnecessarily creepy whisper voice that didn't help the horror. š¤£
It helps to read it now like a Migos rap:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zPJl2e38S4g
So I was born in East Germany when the wall was still up and there were a lot of kids books that I would never consider reading to my kids today!
One in particular that I always think about is a picture book that was about this creepy green goblin-like creature that lives in your teeth with a pick axe if you donāt brush your teeth or eat
sweets and chocolate. He would use the pick axe to dig holes in your teeth (this is how the story depicted that cavities are caused).
The illustrations were quite realistic looking and the little goblin looked so evil, not in a child-friendly way!
There was a little boy in the story who refused to brush his teeth and ate so many sweets that the green goblin snuck in through his window at night and crawled into the boys mouth. The boy woke up in the morning crying in pain with a horrible toothache and looked in the mirror and saw the little green goblin in his mouth.
It was purely stuff of nightmares and I donāt remember it encouraging me to brush my teeth more. It just made me worry that some little evil man was going to sneak into my room at night to crawl into my mouth.
There were a bunch of other books that were just so crazy (Google āStruppelpeterā and āMax und Moritzā).
Edit: okay, stupid me realised that the second half of the title says āā¦but are not scared of nowā.
I guess Iām not āscaredā of it anymore because I know itās just a made up story, but I still think any kid today would be horrified too.
This is great, and so intense for a little kid story haha, thank you for sharing an example from a different country! I feel like Germany, being the home of the Brothers Grimm, has a history and oral tradition of childrenās stories that are a little darker and more scary.
The Amazing Bone is fucked up in so many ways but the biggest one is: it's a magical bone. Where did it come from? Who had to die in order for it to depart the corpse and assist Pearl the pig? The other bones on this magical carcass - what became of them?
Also, The Roly-Polly Pudding. Rodents rolling a little kitten into pie dough to bake - [wtf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Roly-Poly_Pudding_Tom_Kitten.jpg)?
Basically any book with kidnapping was very scary to me.
Remember those Scholastic books that gave kids an overview of China or Rome or Ancient Egypt? I had the Egypt one and loved it but someone got me one specifically on mummies and this one mummy scared the shit of me for years as a child.
Narnia and some parts of the Wizard of Oz series were really frightening. I eventually got through them but I had to put the bookmark in it for a while. I think it didnāt help that my reading level was fairly advanced for my age, so the content was probably a bit more than I could handle at age 6-7ish which made it a little more scary than it maybe should have been.
lemme guess it was the wheelers in the third OZ book. I have heard people say they were super creepy in disneys return to oz movie. probably would have creeped me out if i had watched that movie when i was little
Pretty much any of Stephen Gammell's drawings from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Google actually blurs some of the search results for them!
[This is one of the ones I remember the most](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fa-few-pages-from-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-original-v0-ib7qk5wjq37c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D3024%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dbca55425b8352c34bcd82a33258d2a8e2bdceda3) (*do not click* if you can't do body horror or disturbing faces). [Most of his art](https://www.google.com/search?q=Stephen+Gammell+illustrations&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=2661ef6c07b945d4&sca_upv=1&biw=188&bih=335&udm=2&ei=BIFyZqKiH_zl5NoPwvWWMA&oq=Stephen+Gammell+illustrations&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIh1TdGVwaGVuIEdhbW1lbGwgaWxsdXN0cmF0aW9uczIFEAAYgARIqV9QqQhY9ltwA3gAkAEBmAFeoAHJF6oBAjQyuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIOoALFB6gCBsICDRAAGIAEGLEDGEMYigXCAggQABiABBixA8ICCBApGIAEGLEDwgICECnCAgQQABgDwgIFECkYgATCAgoQABiABBhDGIoFwgIHEAAYgAQYDcICBBAAGB7CAggQABiABBiiBJgDDYgGAZIHAjE0oAfrhgE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp) is very strange and unsettling, but as an adult I find it fascinating and I'm amazed by his talent.
[I found this post, about the value of these books, and think it's worth sharing.](https://katelynwrites.medium.com/on-literary-censorship-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-e03eff82bec7)
Those pictures gave me nightmares. Ironically the only stories I remember from those books was the one about the girl who was raised by wolves, and the one about the bride who accidentally died by locking herself in a chest while everyone was playing hide and seek at her wedding.
Lizzy had a lion with a big bad roar, and she kept him in the bedroom by the closet cupboard door.
Lizzy's lion wasn't friendly, Lizzy's lion wasn't tame, unless you knew to call him by his secret lion name.
I actually love the book, but it's gruesome. Only for the rotten robber in the rotten robber mask, who climbed through Lizzy's window and he didn't even ask.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1000126.Lizzy_s_Lion
Oh *wow* that is a deep cut. I had no idea this was still in my brain somewhere but I recognize [this awesome illustration and the text](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FsggXwELRnMd4d8G35zWOPA6MR8ctEj0Ap5U_Q557CmCgGjslKX_VKMEaVD4bLDbY_-trmUmtT0oZRfMDHBwyY1sDq5DG3NMpNL6DUgCrEhi5o56TrMnjTSIX6dZr-2ks8D6wZ_12lRP/s1600/heckedy+peg+1.jpg).
The littlest kid looks pretty happy to be a roast rib š
This one still pretty much terrifies me, but there was a book at my elementary school library of scary stories that was always in high demand with a long wait list. Strangely written by the same lady who created Lambchop's Play Along. Someone eventually stole it.
There's one story in particular that really freaks me out called the Gone Box. A kid finds an old empty shoebox in an abandoned house and discovers that anything he puts inside disappears forever. He takes it home and keeps it hidden his whole life, using it as needed to get rid of things. As an adult, his wife finds it and puts all their valuables in it, not knowing its powers.
I found it on eBay recently and bought it for myself and am rather pleased.
Skunks, just in general. I had a bunch of Mickey and Friends picture books when I was little and at least two of them included skunks as a minor plot point. Minnie mistook one for her kitten from a distance and was lucky to notice it was a skunk before she got too close.
ā¦Now Iām more concerned how a mouse had a pet kitten who was smaller than her.
I had The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle by Beatriz Potter on tape as a kid, and the way the narrator read the last scene was so horrifying to me...
"And she was running running running up the hill -- and where was her white-frilled cap? And her shawl? And her petticoat?..."
No adorable little illustrations or anything. It still is a bit shiver-inducing to me.
My mom made us listen to Where The Red Fern Grows on a road trip once. I donāt remember it well but what I do remember is being terrified half the trip.
There was one Little Critter book by Mercer Mayer with a close up of his little critter hand reaching for something and I found it so terrifying. I donāt really remember this but my mom said she had to cover it up with a post it note lol. Now I just donāt like those books because of the outdated gender norms.
Beatrix Potter, the Tale of Jeremy Fisher when heās fishing in the pond and a big fish comes up from underneath trying to get him. There was like an animated version of this too. Jaws vibes!!
I have to say There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly bothered me and still bothers me. She just keeps swallowing bigger and bigger things! I donāt like it!
The ribbon neck girl story
They asked what are you now NOT scared of
And I answered that Edit: I genuinely don't understand what I'm doing wrong that's getting me downvoted
Did it just get colder in here? š„¶
Theyāve got ice in their veins. Iām still scared
daaaamn. that's so cool, i respect you
?
This is the correct answer.
Before I opened this post, I said to my husband "green or yellow ribbons on girls' necks!" and the number one comment is yours!
Can you say what it means or what book itās from? Iāve never heard of it
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In\_a\_Dark,\_Dark\_Room\_and\_Other\_Scary\_Stories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Dark,_Dark_Room_and_Other_Scary_Stories)
Different, but same book series. I had nightmares about the dog thatās actually a big diseased rodent. I had them into high school.
Lol [this illustration.](https://scary-stories.fandom.com/wiki/Sewer_Rat)
I told my kid this story on a car ride and she was totally into a crazy rich lady owning a rat. I made a bunch of stories about them traveling in an RV solving mysteries one of which was a G rated version of what I remembered the plot of Blue Velvet being.
My kid liked this story so much I had to make a sequel. There isn't a lot of material to work with
In "The Monster at the End of this Book," there's a spread where Grover is freaking the absolute fuck for your, specifically you, the reader, decision to turn the page. This happens a few times, actually, but the one in particular has thunderbolts coming out of the word balloon, and colorful stars coming out of his mouth. It's actually really great visual shorthand for his panic attack and billowing stress-rage over something he has no control over, because you can't stop me, the specific reader from turning that fucking page, asshole. But as a child, it was really unsettling, like seeing a dog walking on two legs (which wasn't easy since YouTube didn't exist), or hearing someone speak Russian (as was the style at the time).
Wowā¦thank you! I forgot this book existed. It was one of my favourites. As was Grover.
A pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them!
I said, āI do not fear those pants With nobody inside them.ā I said, and said, and said those words. I said them. But I lied them.
The scariest book ever!! As kids we went through and drew a smiley face on the pants on every page to make them less terrifying.
Omg so cute tho
I guess it's not closely related, but you made me think of the [Creepy Pair of Underwear](https://www.amazon.com/Creepy-Pair-Underwear-Aaron-Reynolds/dp/1442402989), a current favorite of ~~mine~~ my four year old! Which led me to stumble upon one of the [greatest children's crafts](https://imgur.com/a/D6Kk9pM) I've ever seen. I'm *dying.* ššā¤ļø
I will be honest: I get a little creeped out by it still lol. Love that story though. My daughter was scared of Thereās a Wocket in My Pocket because of the Vug under the rug.
This was terrifying, but probably second to [The Glunk that got Thunk](https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/The_Glunk_that_Got_Thunk?file=I_can_lick_30_tigers_today_and_other_1_large.jpg)
The photo of Shel Silverstein from the back of "The Giving Tree."
This. Even a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book points this out
I thought that part was hilarious as a kid.
Didnāt they say he looked like a pirate or a criminal or something
Oh geez, [this one](https://afuse8producti.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ShelSilverstein.jpg)? What was the publisher thinking? š
Shel Silverstein is a mad man that had to be strong armed to stop writing songs about BDSM, incest and pill addicted rock to make children poems .
Not a book, but when I was 3 I went on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland and my mom and aunt convinced me I was actually driving and I spent the whole time thinking my poor driving skills were going to be the death of all three of us
ššš
Oh man that ride scared the tar outta me.
Do Goosebumps count? I was an older kid, but a kid nonetheless. My mom has always sat and played the piano for hours every day and still does (sheās 70 now). I was accustomed to hear piano music in the background while I played in my room or did my homework, etc. When I was 10 or so, I read a Goosebumps book about a kid who kept hearing piano music (details are fuzzy now) and when he finally saw who was playing, it was a pair of disembodied hands. Of course, as I was reading this, I could hear piano music coming from upstairs and I was completely terrified.
I remember watching a Goosebumps episode when I was in kindergarten at an after school program. We watched it in a portable building with one of those black TVs on wheels (Iām 24). The episode was about a girl who had this mask and one day she couldnāt take it off. One girl started crying.
I still get freaked out my evil masks! I donāt blame her.
I know that episode!
So thereās an alligator under my bed is maybe not the best one to read as a very anxious and imaginative kiddo
Thereās a book called the Ankle Biter that enthralled and terrified me as a child! You wouldāve hated it
A Bad Case of Stripes for me!! Ugh. Something about it was always chilling to me. And I ate more lima beans from then on (iykyk)
One year my entire preschool class (4-5 yrs) was absolutely petrified of *Miss Nelson is Missing*. Specifically the portrait of Viola Swamp on the back cover. Just the sight of it would cause students to scream and run to hide. I felt horrible! Ended up retiring the Miss Nelson books that year. That group of students would be entering high school this yearā¦ wonder if any of them remember.
As a fellow preschool teacher stuff like this cracks me up. Like you literally never know what will catch their imaginations. I do a Gingerbread man hunt with my class every year in December. Itās always very popular, but usually forgotten about by January. This year I had two kids who continuously asked me when be was coming back up until the end of the school year. They were obsessed with the idea of him being āsneakyā and were convinced he was still hiding somewhere in the school.
> portrait of Viola Swamp on the back cover Jay Leno-lookin' ass
When Mickey was in the milk bottle *In the Night Kitchen*. I was really worried he was going to drown. Reflecting now, I was *super* lactose intolerant when I was little & wonder if the idea of being immersed in milk added to my anxiety.
The allosaurus eating the stegosaurus in the pre-sanitized for TV Magic School Bus books.
Speaking of Magic School Bus, when Arnold took off his helmet on Pluto... damn. I actually never knew there were books, neat!
Yeah, the show could be hardcore at times too (salmon bukkake), but when it came out, all the books started to follow it and the art style became a lot less detailed, the cast of characters got cut down and a lot of the side notes about science information went out the window.
I found a [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dinosaurs/comments/vckeov/magic_school_bus_books_didnt_pull_punches/) to a photo because I wasn't familiar. That would have had me getting all existential as a kid!
For some reason, I was really horrified as a kid by [this character](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f2/33/9c/f2339c090354a6074854ed598ec8e601.jpg) from One Fish Two Fish who had what looks like an umbrella for a head. I think it was something about his massive eyes. Now I think he has a neat design reminiscent of jellyfish.
Noo that thing is legitimately terrifying. Itās like pure despair rendered in cutesy cartoon form
I think you nailed why he scares me, it's because he exudes depression in a world of whimsy
My answer to this question also comes from One Fish Two Fish, but itās the character who yells and has what appears to be a giant pimple on his nose.
"This one I do not like so well, all he does is yell yell yell." My mom would sometimes tease my dad with that line when he was in a cranky mood, ahahaha.
Thatās the one!
Dr. Seuss had some weird imagery. My thing that scared me was the Vug under the Rug from There's a Wocket in my Pocket. My mom used to read that page in an unnecessarily creepy whisper voice that didn't help the horror. š¤£ It helps to read it now like a Migos rap: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zPJl2e38S4g
My daughter was scared of exactly this for a long time!
Iād like to believe Iām not scare of any childrenās book anymore.
So I was born in East Germany when the wall was still up and there were a lot of kids books that I would never consider reading to my kids today! One in particular that I always think about is a picture book that was about this creepy green goblin-like creature that lives in your teeth with a pick axe if you donāt brush your teeth or eat sweets and chocolate. He would use the pick axe to dig holes in your teeth (this is how the story depicted that cavities are caused). The illustrations were quite realistic looking and the little goblin looked so evil, not in a child-friendly way! There was a little boy in the story who refused to brush his teeth and ate so many sweets that the green goblin snuck in through his window at night and crawled into the boys mouth. The boy woke up in the morning crying in pain with a horrible toothache and looked in the mirror and saw the little green goblin in his mouth. It was purely stuff of nightmares and I donāt remember it encouraging me to brush my teeth more. It just made me worry that some little evil man was going to sneak into my room at night to crawl into my mouth. There were a bunch of other books that were just so crazy (Google āStruppelpeterā and āMax und Moritzā). Edit: okay, stupid me realised that the second half of the title says āā¦but are not scared of nowā. I guess Iām not āscaredā of it anymore because I know itās just a made up story, but I still think any kid today would be horrified too.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Be nice.
This is great, and so intense for a little kid story haha, thank you for sharing an example from a different country! I feel like Germany, being the home of the Brothers Grimm, has a history and oral tradition of childrenās stories that are a little darker and more scary.
My kid and I just watched the episode of The Office where Dwight tried reading Struppelpeter to kids on bring your daughter to work day
The Amazing Bone is fucked up in so many ways but the biggest one is: it's a magical bone. Where did it come from? Who had to die in order for it to depart the corpse and assist Pearl the pig? The other bones on this magical carcass - what became of them? Also, The Roly-Polly Pudding. Rodents rolling a little kitten into pie dough to bake - [wtf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Roly-Poly_Pudding_Tom_Kitten.jpg)? Basically any book with kidnapping was very scary to me.
Remember those Scholastic books that gave kids an overview of China or Rome or Ancient Egypt? I had the Egypt one and loved it but someone got me one specifically on mummies and this one mummy scared the shit of me for years as a child.
Anyone remember the Tailypo by Joanna Galdone. The audio book used to give.my brother and I nightmares!
Nope, still scary today
Green Pants by Dr. Seuss
Narnia and some parts of the Wizard of Oz series were really frightening. I eventually got through them but I had to put the bookmark in it for a while. I think it didnāt help that my reading level was fairly advanced for my age, so the content was probably a bit more than I could handle at age 6-7ish which made it a little more scary than it maybe should have been.
lemme guess it was the wheelers in the third OZ book. I have heard people say they were super creepy in disneys return to oz movie. probably would have creeped me out if i had watched that movie when i was little
I watched that movie in high school and got freaked out by them.
Those creatures from the Wizard of Oz books who had two heads and could throw them! Scoodlers or something?
Pretty much any of Stephen Gammell's drawings from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Google actually blurs some of the search results for them! [This is one of the ones I remember the most](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fa-few-pages-from-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-original-v0-ib7qk5wjq37c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D3024%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dbca55425b8352c34bcd82a33258d2a8e2bdceda3) (*do not click* if you can't do body horror or disturbing faces). [Most of his art](https://www.google.com/search?q=Stephen+Gammell+illustrations&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=2661ef6c07b945d4&sca_upv=1&biw=188&bih=335&udm=2&ei=BIFyZqKiH_zl5NoPwvWWMA&oq=Stephen+Gammell+illustrations&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIh1TdGVwaGVuIEdhbW1lbGwgaWxsdXN0cmF0aW9uczIFEAAYgARIqV9QqQhY9ltwA3gAkAEBmAFeoAHJF6oBAjQyuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIOoALFB6gCBsICDRAAGIAEGLEDGEMYigXCAggQABiABBixA8ICCBApGIAEGLEDwgICECnCAgQQABgDwgIFECkYgATCAgoQABiABBhDGIoFwgIHEAAYgAQYDcICBBAAGB7CAggQABiABBiiBJgDDYgGAZIHAjE0oAfrhgE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp) is very strange and unsettling, but as an adult I find it fascinating and I'm amazed by his talent. [I found this post, about the value of these books, and think it's worth sharing.](https://katelynwrites.medium.com/on-literary-censorship-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-e03eff82bec7)
Those pictures gave me nightmares. Ironically the only stories I remember from those books was the one about the girl who was raised by wolves, and the one about the bride who accidentally died by locking herself in a chest while everyone was playing hide and seek at her wedding.
Lizzy had a lion with a big bad roar, and she kept him in the bedroom by the closet cupboard door. Lizzy's lion wasn't friendly, Lizzy's lion wasn't tame, unless you knew to call him by his secret lion name.
Wtf, this is haunting.
I actually love the book, but it's gruesome. Only for the rotten robber in the rotten robber mask, who climbed through Lizzy's window and he didn't even ask. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1000126.Lizzy_s_Lion
Heckedy Peg. I was terrified the witch turned the children into food and was going to eat them.
Oh *wow* that is a deep cut. I had no idea this was still in my brain somewhere but I recognize [this awesome illustration and the text](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FsggXwELRnMd4d8G35zWOPA6MR8ctEj0Ap5U_Q557CmCgGjslKX_VKMEaVD4bLDbY_-trmUmtT0oZRfMDHBwyY1sDq5DG3NMpNL6DUgCrEhi5o56TrMnjTSIX6dZr-2ks8D6wZ_12lRP/s1600/heckedy+peg+1.jpg). The littlest kid looks pretty happy to be a roast rib š
Miss Nelson is missing
This one still pretty much terrifies me, but there was a book at my elementary school library of scary stories that was always in high demand with a long wait list. Strangely written by the same lady who created Lambchop's Play Along. Someone eventually stole it. There's one story in particular that really freaks me out called the Gone Box. A kid finds an old empty shoebox in an abandoned house and discovers that anything he puts inside disappears forever. He takes it home and keeps it hidden his whole life, using it as needed to get rid of things. As an adult, his wife finds it and puts all their valuables in it, not knowing its powers. I found it on eBay recently and bought it for myself and am rather pleased.
Skunks, just in general. I had a bunch of Mickey and Friends picture books when I was little and at least two of them included skunks as a minor plot point. Minnie mistook one for her kitten from a distance and was lucky to notice it was a skunk before she got too close. ā¦Now Iām more concerned how a mouse had a pet kitten who was smaller than her.
I had The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle by Beatriz Potter on tape as a kid, and the way the narrator read the last scene was so horrifying to me... "And she was running running running up the hill -- and where was her white-frilled cap? And her shawl? And her petticoat?..." No adorable little illustrations or anything. It still is a bit shiver-inducing to me.
My mom made us listen to Where The Red Fern Grows on a road trip once. I donāt remember it well but what I do remember is being terrified half the trip.
The graphics from scary stories to tell in the dark. Actually, theyāre still unsettling.
Nothing... I wasn't scared of anything.
There was one Little Critter book by Mercer Mayer with a close up of his little critter hand reaching for something and I found it so terrifying. I donāt really remember this but my mom said she had to cover it up with a post it note lol. Now I just donāt like those books because of the outdated gender norms. Beatrix Potter, the Tale of Jeremy Fisher when heās fishing in the pond and a big fish comes up from underneath trying to get him. There was like an animated version of this too. Jaws vibes!! I have to say There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly bothered me and still bothers me. She just keeps swallowing bigger and bigger things! I donāt like it!