Did you read scary stories as a child? I did, and I loved them until I woke up screaming in the middle of the night from nightmares.

I don't know what exactly attracted me to the scary folklore, urban legend type tales as a child, but I frequently checked this type of book out of the library. I even bought them at book fairs.

In fact, I owned my own copy of 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' and 'More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.' Maybe I discovered I liked them after being introduced to Nickelodeon's show, "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" I loved that show, but I wouldn't watch it by myself or in the dark, for obvious reasons!

I loved to be scared. I would stay up late reading these stories, and then have really terrifying dreams, some that I still recall in my imagination, which would wake me in the night. My mom got so tired of calming me down, that she actually took all of the scary books out of my room, and hid them from me.

I stumbled across an article on MentalFloss.com, a few days ago with interesting facts about the series. Part of what I loved about the stories was that they were based on the folklore stories of Europe.

"Some of these tales are very old, and they are told around the world," Schwartz wrote in the foreword to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. "And most have the same origins. They are based on things that people saw or heard or experienced—or thought they did."

Now, for kids who loved these books like I did, and are now adults, there's a documentary coming as well.

Check this out!

 

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