Scariest Stories Ever Told

A campground in the woods. A school prank gone wrong. A house with a horrible past. A thing lurking in the basement. A new kid who’s not what she seems.

These are all horror tropes we know well, proper bits of creepy goodness that seep into our minds as October rolls around, and these are the building blocks upon which Roberta Simpson Brown constructs what calls the Scariest Stories Ever Told.

The stories in this collection are decidedly grim; although a few of these involve some karmic retribution in a supernatural form, most are simply bad things happening to unsuspecting victims. But even if the collection doesn’t quite live up to the bombastic title, it still offers a solid set of junior-grade-appropriate horror tales. They don’t rely on gore or sex to spice up their chills, just the worst our imaginations can conjure up.

A few stories, like the one of the children playing with a snowman or the tale of a dead woman’s scattered bones, are inventive tales that play on old tropes in fresh ways, immensely satisfying nuggets for an old horror fan like me to sink my teeth into.