With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I’d do a post all about my favourite Halloween related books. Not all of them are scary, but some certainly are. However, they are all in my collection and are things I tend to read over and over again because I find them to be that good.
First up, we have one of my all-time favourite books; How Spider Saved Halloween by Robert Kraus. I have three Spider books in all including one for Valentine’s Day and one for Christmas; wherein something goes amiss and Spider’s always saving the day. I loved these books as a kid and they were my very own, not handed down previously from my older sister. I also them every year on their respective holidays or on a day leading up to, as I’ve already re-read this one for this year, to get into the mood of drawing Spider and his friends.
The basic story is that Spider is BFF’s with Lady Bug and somewhat of Fly (though Fly has a crush on Lady Bug and doesn’t much care for Spider, though tolerates him). Spider doesn’t know what to dress up as for Halloween. He’s trying various costumes and the bad Mosquito Twins ruin Lady Bug’s Pumpkin, so Spider saves the day by being a jack-o-lantern and scaring the Mosquito Twins. They don’t really have the name of Mosquito Twins, they’re just referred to as bullies, but I always referred to them as such.
I’ll add this in since it relates. I’m currently coming up on the end of Drawlloween, which is a day prompted drawing challenge of various Halloweeny things. Tomorrow’s is Fabulous Spider, so of course I would choose spider.
He’s not difficult to draw as you can see. And it was quite enjoyable drawing him. So, the first two up there are when Spider is having his friends dress him up. There are other costumes, but these were always my personal favourites. Then we have Spider dressed as a pumpkin and Fly as one of the Seven Dwarfs and Lady Bug as a witch.
13 __________ Ghosts & Jeffrey series by Kathryn Tucker Windham. These are my mothers books and they sort of hold pride of place for her, she even has a few of them autographed by the authoress. However, I was allowed to read them as a child and they’re good.
It’s basically the author has a ghost in her house whom she named Jeffrey and together they are here to present these collected southern ghost stories. So you have one book, featuring thirteen different ghost stories collected from each state, she just put a minor twist on it claiming to have her own ghost, which I don’t know if that’s true, but she certainly believes it.
Reader’s Digest: Strange Stories, Amazing Facts was my dad’s book, which I was allowed to read growing up. Besides containing some macabre and spooky bits, it’s also informative with factual information on the solar system and other sciency things. I still love this book to this day.
Time Life’s The Enchanted World: Ghosts and The Enchanted World: Night Creatures are all that we own of this entire series. It was an introductory offer, sent to my grandmother to entice her into buying the entire series, which she did not do.
They were a source of frustration for me. We went to visit and they’d arrived since our last visit and my grandmother was showing them off. My mother absolutely forbade me to look at them and though I caught glimpses, they were shelved up high. Try as I might over the years I was never really able to get to them secretly and flip through them.
I’d wanted to, initially, because they were spooky books which I enjoyed. Then it merely became a need because I had been forcefully told no. When we cleaned out my grandmother house I was twenty one. I was in charge of the bookshelves in the den and came across these. I cradled them to my chest and then stopped working just to flip through them right then and there.
They are rather creepy in their illustrations, but at some point I should have been able to look at them I think. Anyways, they are good stories and information. It’s factual information in so much as “here’s a bit about what people of the past believed about vampires” or such, which from my other readings through the years is true.
So, it may have taken me awhile to lay hands on them, but at least it wasn’t a complete let down, as they’re actually worth reading… and re-reading.
This was the first spooky book I ever purchased. Alice Morse Earle’s Curious Punishments of Bygone Days. It’s a book first published in 1896, that keeps getting reprinted with various cover designs. I was fourteen and we were on holiday in the Smoky Mountains. They have a lot of weird books up there for sale, as you will see; mainly ghost stories though.
She was an American historian and focused a lot on Colonial America. Inside the book, along with descriptions and statements from her research are sketches like the one I’ve shown. It’s not pretty, but torture never is, but it is certainly worth a read and is perfect for getting into that spooky Halloween mood. If you’ve the stomach for it, as the Ducking Stool is one of the least creepy one’s along with The Scarlet Letter.
Ghost Tales of the Uwharries by Fred T. Morgan is another book I picked up whilst on holiday in the mountains of North Carolina. The Uwharries Mountains are a 500 million year old chain that have been whittled away by erosion; topping in at just over one thousand feet, but were once up to twenty thousand.
This is a collection of stories from that region and they are creepy as hell. The simple black and white illustrations only add to the chill factor. They are well worth the read, and the re-read, and are probably by far the creepiest tales I own, along with The Enchanted World books.
Another book of collected ghost stories from holiday in North Carolina; Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett, is not nearly as spooky at Uwharries, but it is well worth a read, which is why I’ve kept it.
Though this has a different publishing house’s title, it’s the same book that I own; The Walker Book of Ghost Stories by Susan Hill. This is a collection of British ghost stories for the mid-20th century. It was also a gift from my family in my early twenties. None of them are too creepy, though some are rather spooky, while some are rather nice. It is quite enjoyable and I’ve re-read it about four or five times.
Grimm’s Grimmest is a book that was given to me by my sister in my mid – late 20’s. It’s the most gruesome of The Grimm Brothers faerie tales with rather sinister illustrations. They are perfectly macabre and gory for this time of year.
I absolutely adore old superstitions! I don’t live by them, but I thoroughly enjoy reading about them. So, The Encyclopedia of Superstitions by Christina Hale, E. & M.A. Radford was right up my alley. I purchased this in my late twenties or early thirties.
I mean everyone’s heard of broken mirrors, walking under ladders, and black cats, but have you ever heard of Dumb Cake? Dumb as in mute, not lack of intelligence. You keep mum for an entire day and night. You bake a simple cake and poke holes in it and set this up so that the spectre of your future beloved will show himself. Only guess what? When he does, he’ll try to attack and kill you and you have to run from the kitchen to your bedroom while stripping your clothes (so he’ll attack those and not you), until you make it to the safety of your bed. If you say one word or even cry out, he’ll basically eat you.
Can’t get more perfect that that for Halloween, am I right? There are tons of old superstitions and lore contained in this book and not all are creepy, but quite a lot are. It’s perfectly thrilling!
Alien Tea Shoppe 