Boo! It's Spooky Season and Banned Books week so the gang decided to dig into Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell's legendary Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (the most banned books of the 90s!). They chat about what scared them (or didn't) and dig into the banned books subject as only librarians can do. Follow us on Instagram at @ReadersAdvisoryROC

Smithsonian article referenced: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-frightened-so-many-parents-in-the-1990s-180978945/

Most egregious illustration replacements: https://litreactor.com/columns/the-18-most-egregious-art-replacements-from-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Reader's Advisory Theme by Kelley Marcano

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I'm gonna hype up Kelly Marcona one more time.

He's the guy that did our theme song there.

And I think it's the perfect thing for what we're entering right now, which is spooky season and also banned book week.

It's kind of spooky.

It is.

It's got a great vibe to it.

It does have a great vibe to it.

I think it might have, you know, like, scary stories to tell in the dark, which is what we're talking about today.

They could have.

I think that jives with that.

I kind of wish I had this song to listen to while I was reading these.

Ooh, that's a good point.

Right?

It is.

Only it's like a minute and 50 seconds, so just on repeat.

Just on repeat.

You know, I'm an on repeat type of person.

Just listen to it over and over again.

Yeah.

Until you're a little bit sick of it.

That's going to mess with your Spotify.

Well, you know, Spot.

Yeah.

You're wrapped.

My apple music.

Wrapped.

You're just.

People are going to think you're obsessed with yourself.

Oh, she's listening to her theme song.

And you know what, Jim?

I have no problem with that.

Listen, if you have a theme song, why not listen?

That's right.

That's right.

Ah.

I wish I had a theme song.

I guess I do.

You do.

We all do it and we share it.

Yeah.

Our shared theme song.

Shared theme.

That's so cute, guys.

I love it.

All right, all right.

Here we go.

Boo Boo.

Right?

It's spooky season.

I don't want to get into the Transylvanian thing.

I will if I have to.

Wow.

Okay.

Who suggested that we read scary stories to tell in the dark?

Because I think it was you.

It was you.

Oh, I was about to say I love them and I want to kiss them.

That's true.

What a brilliant person.

What a smart guy.

Who suggested that?

I can't believe it.

Because usually my ideas, I don't know if they get shot down.

No, well, we have done so.

They get ignored.

Maybe your ideas.

Well, yeah.

Which ones?

The Odyssey.

That was.

That was my idea.

Come on.

And then tried to claim credit for Weathering Heights.

I did try to claim.

No, I think you came up with yesteryear.

Maybe yesterday, A bunch of other little babies.

Thanks.

I came up with, like, the most, like.

Oh, the one that's, like, right in my face right now.

Well, the low hanging fruit.

Well, all right, all right.

Whatever.

Well, apparently, this is my idea, and I'm really excited about it because I read this last night as my homework for this episode.

And I had such a good time reminiscing and reliving scary stories to tell in the dark.

Because I think maybe, maybe for me more than the rest of y', all, this is kind of like a.

This is a childhood book.

Yes.

Deal.

This book.

Yeah.

In the 90s in the school libraries especially.

Right.

And also the Scholastic Book Fairs.

This.

These were the books.

Like, they were the books.

Do you remember what your experience was like reading this as a child?

Absolutely.

It was horrified.

I remember taking it out from Ms. Tirson in the Mohansek Elementary School library.

Ms. Turson.

She always pronounced it funny.

So I was like, Ms. Turson.

I was like.

So I called her Ms. Sown once.

She's like, no, it's Ms. Ter Sown.

Oh, it sounds like Mr. Sone.

Yeah, exactly.

So it bugged with my young head.

Anyway, I remember grabbing these there and they blew me away.

I mean, maybe more the illustrations than anything else, but it was, it was.

It felt like you were doing something maybe you weren't supposed to be doing.

The illustrations are like by far and away the best part of this.

Yeah, it is.

I. I also remember my experience with reading them as a child and it was that I thought the stories were kind of lame and the illustrations were pretty good and spooky.

Do you remember what age you read this at either of you?

No, my time.

I'm talking about my adolescence.

I'm like when I was eight.

Yeah.

It's somewhere in there.

Well, the.

I mean, let's back it up for a second.

So this.

Don't make that face at all.

Wow.

In our olds.

Yeah.

Our resident Gen Z are over there.

Yeah.

Can't help it.

I'm still millennial.

I'm an old one, but I'm still a millennial.

Yeah.

We're at the top end.

We're at the bottom end.

Yes.

Fine, fine.

Hold on now.

Let me get back to where I was going.

I forget things now, you know.

Well, it's because you're age, so.

The first of the three books, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

It's written by Alvin Schwartz and he's writing, though it's not his own stories.

Right.

He's done a ton.

An ass load of research on folklore and all sorts of stories from mostly from this country, but also globally a bit, I'd say.

Schwartz unfortunately passed away in 92.

And these.

And I said at the top of the show, that's also banned book week.

This was the most banned book of the 90s, which is pretty.

It's strange, the progression of that.

We could get into that.

It's a whole different subject.

But, like, this was the thing in the 90s that they didn't want us to read.

Yeah.

Which is so crazy because it's very much like.

Like the first story in it is the toe, where a guy, a little child, finds a toe sticking out of the ground, and he pulls it out of the ground, and he's like, this looks like a great dinner.

Let me eat that toe.

And then he takes it.

And then he takes it home to his mom, and she cooks it in a soup.

And then they eat the toe.

And then the person comes looking, where is my cho.

You have it.

Like, it's so stupid.

It is so stupid.

All right, sorry.

It is.

The first set of stories are all jump, scare kind of things.

Right.

So it's like you're telling the long, drawn out story and you got it, or whatever it is, that kind of thing.

But I don't know if it's.

I think these ones are better.

Like, read aloud.

Yes.

You know, you read it aloud to an audience, and then it's like, oh, you can actually get a pretty good scare.

I mean, even out of a seventh grader.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which they feel too old for it.

But they aren't.

Yeah.

Because if they're not paying attention, you could get them with the jump.

They might not have paid attention the entire story.

I think that the jump stories, their ideal audience and telling is at a sleepaway camp.

Yes.

A couple days in.

Where you're starting to get really homesick, but you haven't deeply connected with any of the other kids yet.

And your camp counselor does this to you.

One of your lowest moments in life.

I think that is where you're actually gonna get scared by this.

Because otherwise it's like, well, that wouldn't happen to me because I'm not eating a toe I found in the girdle.

All right, wait, so what's your problem here?

Why don't.

Is your problem that it's not scary?

You just don't.

Like.

You said the stories are lame, which is actually kind of surprising to me.

Are we about to have a coming from you Know what?

She texted.

She texted, you know, this is offline stuff.

We keep our personal matters, you know, with this private.

But she said something that I found deeply offensive in the text.

And she was like, it's just not.

It wasn't.

I never thought it was scary.

And, like, it's just.

People can't handle death.

I'm like, so, okay, he is misquoting me.

This is a quote from my girlfriend after I read her the ideal way to hear this story.

The toe.

Yes.

And she pauses and she looks at me and she goes, so is all of the fear just from, like, the concept of death?

I'm like, yeah, the concept.

It's important to note that your girlfriend is a therapist and is thinking about these things at a different level than 8 year olds.

She also, as an 8 year old, was so easily scared that her cousin would.

Because she was terrified of vampires.

Her cousin, they both have thick accents.

Definitely thicker.

When they were eight, would go tapier, but with a V. And that would get her so scared she would have nightmares and she would have to go tell their moms.

Sorry, I'm just still coming for you here.

Did you read the notes?

Yeah.

I loved the notes.

I know.

That's what I'm.

That's why I'm surprised that you don't like it.

Because he was like a pit bull, apparently, in the research, like, he's researching each.

Each of this little.

It's impressive.

It's impressive as a work of scholarship.

They're just not scary.

Okay.

That's fair.

I know.

You're right.

You know what?

I agree, though.

I don't think the thing is, Rachel's not the target audience.

Yeah.

And that's okay.

And I wasn't.

Even as a child, I was deeply surprised.

That doesn't mean she's better than us.

No.

Some of us were scared.

Other things mean she's better than us.

I just imagine her, like, you know, with like, her fingers on her chin just, like, shaking her head.

Yeah.

As a child, I couldn't read Goosebumps.

They were so trendy in my school.

And, like, every time I picked one up, I was like, I'm too spooked by this.

I can't do it.

Goosebumps.

So it's not like.

It's not like I was a tough kid.

Do you know what?

I have a theory.

My theory is these are very short.

Yeah.

There is not a ton of fleshing out.

Like, there's.

How many stories do you think are in here?

Like 50?

Like, there's a lot of stories.

Probably less than tiny little book.

Yeah.

35.

35, 30, Something like that.

Between 30 and 40, maybe.

Songs, jokes, little poems every once in a while.

Whereas Goosebumps is a.

That's a chapter book.

Sure.

That's a.

You know, that's a 70 page book.

If you get into it.

There can be some scary stuff happening there.

I haven't read them myself because I'm too scared, you know, I guess I'm gonna have nightmares.

Yeah.

I guess when it comes down to it for most people.

I mean, you read this constantly and people revolted against like the.

Oh, because they changed the illustrations.

They changed the illustrations and it's.

It wasn't bad.

Like a bad illustrator was the guy that does.

What is it?

Give me one second here.

Well, anyway, the replacement was somebody renowned.

It was someone renowned who was on a big series.

I have in my notes somewhere.

But it was such a divergence from these, which are, I think, singular.

The illustrations in here.

This guy.

I mean, like all the dangly shit.

Yeah.

It just looks very ethereal, very spooky.

And it's all like what, pencil drawn or just ink?

Yeah.

I think very scratchy.

You know, one thing I was thinking about because there was a. Jim shared a really interesting article with us that is online on the Smithsonian website about the illustrations.

The difference in the current.

Or, I'm sorry, in the original illustrations and the updated illustrations.

And one thing I was thinking about that I was curious about your.

All of your takes on it is why this sort of thing happens when I feel like most of the time when this is like a cult classic type of book the way this one is, people don't react well to it.

Why do they do something like this?

Is it purely just to make more money?

It's a good question.

Right?

Yeah.

Side note, the replacement illustrator was Brett Hellquist.

Who was the.

Hellquist.

Yes, Illustrator from A Series of Unfortunate.

Events, which is an incredible series and has beautiful illustrations.

But the revolt online.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because people are like, we got it, we can't have.

Yep.

I.

There were.

There were a couple of interesting quotes in that article that you shared that I would love to read if you all give me a moment, please.

One was that just made me giggle was Hellquist went for the more creeping Horror gammel.

The original illustrator was balls to the wall, which I thought was funny because this is a children's book.

And then the other one was.

I think what chafes me just a little is that scary stories to tell in the dark was one of the few things growing up that I had access to that was too scary for me.

It was in the kids part of the library.

It was a Scholastic book sale teacher sanctioned way for me to push the boundaries a little.

These books were passed around between friends and we would all try and outdo each other by finding the grossest drawings buried in the different volumes.

So it like you're talking about these, both of you are talking about these illustrations were the scariest part of the stories when you were kids.

And that's changed.

That's no longer the case in the current edition.

No.

Well they, they abandoned the old ones quickly and they've been re.

They did.

Yeah.

No, that was like lasted nice very quickly.

Kind of sucks for the guy who.

Put all the work very much sucks.

Like that's got to be like.

But he should have known.

Well, but he also was probably like commissioned to do it.

He probably wasn't like, let me update all the drawings from this cult classic children's book.

It's wild though, like why would they even do that to begin with?

Because yeah, it's, they're iconic.

Here, let me give you a little background on Gammell here.

So this is about Schwartz selecting his illustrator.

And before I get into it, I think Schwartz and Gammell are like almost as iconic author illustrator team as like a Ralph Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson doing like Fear and Loathing.

I think, I think the, they're that, that closely tied.

That closely tied together.

All right, so here you go.

To heighten his young readers fear, Schwartz handpicked Stephen Gammell, a little known self taught artist to illustrate scary stories.

Gammell, who is known for his colorful socks and refusal to give interviews, gave a strange rambling speech that confused attendees and still talked about in the children's publishing world over 30 years later.

In parentheses.

The association for Library Service to Children, the division of the American Library association that awards the Calicot links to past recipients acceptance speeches.

Though Gammell's is nowhere to be found.

I want to Hear that goddamn speech.

Let's be so for real.

That is, like, the perfect vibe to have for this illustrator.

It's amazing, right?

I can't believe he's still alive out there somewhere.

Is he?

Yes, he's.

Oh, my God.

I watched this documentary after reading these last night.

You can find it on Tubi.

It's about.

And the book banning of the 90s and how it, you know, influenced a million people from my generation.

But they get into.

They don't have anything on Gammel.

Like, they know he, like, lives above, like a.

Like a hair salon or something.

And he's just like, still.

He's just drawing, just drawn, drawing away every day.

I wonder if he does illustration anymore, if he's, like, currently working.

I know you would think, like, looks.

I wish I didn't know that.

The Frazzle thing that's in your collection.

It might be.

That's so interesting.

Well, I hope he's having a great retirement then.

But if you look at a lot of his old stuff, including the Caldecott winner here, it's all very similar.

It's all these kind of.

And he would refuse to work with the author.

He always want.

He didn't want any input from the author.

He just wanted to take the text.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And ghost.

And do it like that.

Do his own thing, which is me.

I love that.

Do you know what I want to know?

Yes.

What the author of this book would think about the updated illustrations.

It's a good question.

Because if he didn't have any input on the original illustrations, but he did choose.

He chose Gammell specifically because he liked his style.

I 100%, I would bet anything that the books would never have been banned or challenged if it wasn't for the illustrations.

If it wasn't for the illustrations.

That's interesting.

During that challenge, it was like the big.

The flashpoint was in Seattle in one little classic suburban community.

And the.

The person that was leading the charge, the mother of whoever, you know, Johnny, second grader, was like, kids have enough to deal with.

They.

We got to worry about, you know, kidnappings and all this other.

And they don't have to worry about getting cut up and eat served for dinner.

Like, it's like, come.

Come on.

They're not worrying about that.

Come on.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And if they are, you need to talk to them.

Yeah.

And Say, hey, kids, some things aren't real.

Their anxiety disorder does need to be diagnosed and dealt with.

Yeah, I feel like that.

Yeah, go ahead.

Was this part of, like, the Satanic panic at all?

Because I know that was in the 80s.

That's more the 80s.

Yeah.

So they.

In the documentary again, which I recommend.

It's on tubi.

It's not.

It's like a janky kind of documentary.

It's not perfect, but it's fun.

But they.

They talk about the.

They get really into the bannings of.

Of the current days.

You know, LGBTQ stuff is the thing now it was.

I forget what it was in the previous, but 90s was this kind of stuff and 80s was the satanic panic.

So this was a little different.

So, I don't know, it seems quaint now.

I think, like, that this was, like, causing such an uproar.

Well, and it's interesting that you say that you think that the thing that.

Or not the thing that.

But that this wouldn't have been banned so much without the illustrations, because then you look at what is currently being banned, and a lot of it is graphic novels.

Yes.

I was just going to say that.

That's a great point.

That through line right there of like, a visual is so much more of something than text, you know, and kind of that.

Those are.

Graphic novels are very fascinating just because they take two different mediums and they blend into one thing.

And I think it's, like, very fascinating how that's like, something that's being latched onto with current book bands and apparently previous ones.

I don't mean to say this as like a, you know, going after people, but do you think it's also the laziness of the Challenger.

Yes.

Who's like, you can open the page and there's the picture.

Right.

But, oh, yeah, most of the time, people have not read the book.

They're challenging.

And it's also.

It's much easier to take a picture out of context.

Right.

Than it is to take, like, a piece of text out of context.

Yeah.

Here's page 92.

Why is this happening?

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

If I may speak about ridiculous book bans, one of my co workers was pulling books for our Banned Book Week display, and obviously I was helping her find the ones in children's.

And one of the ones that is most recently banned was DK Horses, which, if people don't know, is a nonfiction series that's just like encyclopedias.

It's an encyclopedia horse book about horse facts.

And so we flipped through every Single page, trying to figure out what it was that offended people enough to get it challenged.

And we're like, is it the word asses when they're talking about donkeys?

Probably wild asses.

No.

Is it that you can see horse penis sometimes?

It's got to be.

But like not out horse penis.

Just like horse.

But it's not human.

Tucked away horse penis.

If you've been near a farm, if you've been near a farm, you've seen worse.

You know, if you're a tasteful horse penis,.

You know, if any, if any parent comes in and is concerned about that, just say it's just a tasteful, tasteful nudity.

Yeah, parent.

I've seen much worse.

It's artistic.

I'm just like.

When you said DK horses, I was like, surely not.

Encyclopedias.

Encyclopedia.

That's crazy.

Okay.

That's mind blowing.

Do you think it's the jackass thing?

That's.

It's not even jackass.

It's wild asses.

It's 100.

Did you confirm that?

That's why?

No, we couldn't figure it out.

It's just that it's been challenged.

Do you know, I was looking at, in preparation for this, I was looking at the top 10 most banned books from last year.

And.

And of course Genderqueer is on there.

Book that's been banned so many times over the last 10 years.

It wasn't even published 10 years ago.

But John Green's looking for Alaska is on there again still.

It is still on there.

What's the issue with that one?

They are smoking cigarettes and I think there might be a blowjob or something.

But like, come on, it's a teen book.

Yeah.

Like that's going to be in a teen book.

And then Ellen Hopkins been on the list a gajillion times.

She's like one of the most banned authors.

Like she is.

Yeah.

Across, like more of her books get banned numerically.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

What about, what about her is.

Yeah.

Highlights her for banning?

I don't know.

I do know that she's really cool in person.

If you've ever met Ellen, she's a chill girl.

I like her a lot.

She writes a lot about kids going through stuff like drugs.

Just like tough topics.

Oh, really?

Yeah, like.

Like life specifically.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, specifically girls going through really tough stuff.

Yeah.

The one that I read a lot as a kid, like at least two or three times was as A teen, not as a child, was Crank, which is specifically about a teenage girl who gets hooked on math.

Yeah.

Which did make me go, wow, I should never do math.

You know, this seems awful.

Yeah.

Do you know what else is on that list?

What?

Perks of being a wallflower.

Still.

Still.

These people are not keeping up with public.

No, they're not.

That one got challenged as instructional material within a district that I worked in at one point in time, which was interesting.

It was the year after, like, I had left that district and I had taught that book that year, and then I left in the following year.

It was challenges instructional material for seniors, by the way.

They were seniors, and they're like, this is so dark for the seniors.

And the main character in that book is, like, 15.

They were upset, I guess, that the sister has a sexual assault experience, an essay experience within the book.

And I was like, so I hate to break it to you, but, like, kids go through terrible things.

Yeah.

It's still being taught.

Which, you know, honestly, it was really funny because by the time I was done teaching that as, like, a book, like, so many of my seniors were dragging their feet, I was like, I feel like I've read Perks of being a wallflower 17 times.

Yeah.

And now I'm like, well, maybe I'm fine with banning it because I don't want to see it anymore.

It's such an empowerful and beautiful book.

But, like, if you taught it 17 times, you have to be like, look for the literary elements on page 73.

And you're like, God, again.

Again.

It's funny.

It's always the books that click with kids, though, that end up on the.

And.

Well, I think that that may be part of it.

Absolutely.

Right, Right.

Like.

Like, you are.

It's not.

You're trying to take away things from children, but, like, I think for a lot of grownups, they don't want children to grow up.

Stay in the sandbox.

Yeah.

They don't want to.

Don't think about.

Yeah.

They want to.

They want to protect them.

They want to be helicopter parents.

Yes.

Assuming they're even parents within a community, which often enough people who are challenging books within school districts or public districts are not within the community and aren't parents, you know, and they're just loud voices I mentioned.

Go ahead.

A big thing when I don't know if it was here or if it was somewhere else, but it was a bunch of challengers were coming from, like, Maine.

Like, all of the.

All of the loudest voices in an Online.

I know that there was from out.

Of state, because it's just like these lists go around in certain communities, and then.

Yeah, they circulate.

It was.

I think it's an organization called Moms for Liberty, and they circulate a lot of banned book lists, like, all over.

And then people either within that district or outside of the district will take it upon themselves to bring it up as an issue.

The book may not even be within the district half the time.

And.

And it was actually.

It was pretty intense.

I know that.

Clyde.

Savannah, which is a district near us in Wayne, Finger Lakes Boces, had a book ban so severe, it went all the way to the Education department at State.

Wow.

And, like, there was, like, a decision ruling of, like, what they would do about it.

Wow.

Which, of course, they kept the books.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go figure.

Yeah.

Well, I do have to say I'm very thankful that, you know, you can't read Crank by Ellen Hopkins, but you can read the novelization of the movie Crank Ghost written by Jason Statham.

What?

Oh, I just made that point.

But you could definitely read the novelization.

Of Crank, the book from the Office where Michael Scott's, like, my favorite book is Push, which is the novelization of the movie, which is about Precious by.

Sapphire or something like that.

And that was actually really funny because my first year teaching, I did have a book.

I had that book in my library.

I was like, oh, my God, that's so funny.

I thought that was, like, a joke.

And I was like, no, that's.

Of course Michael Scott would say that, though.

That's hilarious.

We always.

We've threatened many times in this podcast, maybe not many times, but to cover the novelization of Austin Powers, the Spy who Shagged Me.

I don't know if we threw it on air.

I think that it has been.

No, I brought it up.

I thought it.

I thought it would be hilarious.

I thought it would be hilarious to do the novelization and watch the movie.

God.

I've never seen or read either.

No.

But I did see one of the excerpts going around online, which was, like, groovy.

He didn't say, because it wasn't.

And I thought, yeah, I do want to read that.

I desperately want to read it.

I'm down.

I had a few novelizations of films.

Like, I mean, like, I don't even know what it was.

Novelization of Men in Black or something like that.

It's like this.

Why did I.

This is.

You know what I want to say.

I slop.

So I don't know if this exists.

But there's the Haunted Mansion ride in Disneyland and then there's the movies based off the ride.

And then I would love to know if there's a book based off.

Based off the movies.

Based off the Breezy.

Based off the ride.

Are the movies based off the ride?

Are they good?

Some of them are pirates.

Because I was thinking like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Those movies are based off the ride and those movies are, in my opinion, they're awesome.

Yeah.

The first two, at least.

Is there a book, Pirates of the Caribbean?

Well, there's novelizations of the movies.

Really?

Yes.

Oh, my God.

It was my favorite book.

I wrote it on my Pizza Hut summer reading thing when I was like 11.

I was like, I really like the novelization of Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End.

That's awesome.

I think what we can say for sure is the worst of the dis of the novelization of the movies based on rides in Disney was the Country Bear Jamboree.

A tremendous ride.

If you want air conditioning in the middle of a Florida day.

I've been there.

I've been there.

Some great singing.

Probably not enough content to make a movie.

No.

To the small minded.

But.

But I think we could say the pirates, you know, episode might be swashbuckling to a podcast near you next summer.

Right.

That could be fun.

Yeah.

Keep an eye out for that.

Er, yes.

Well, let's, let's pull it back here.

Let's get back to scary stories.

Do you think there would ever be a ride based off of scary stories?

There was a movie.

They haven't not had a ride yet.

Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed, I think would make it maybe Six Flags.

Maybe Six Flags.

You'd have.

I think.

What about a proper haunted house?

Guys, we should pitch it.

I know.

We should pitch it.

Let's put a deck together on.

We're going to write to the family.

Pitch deck on that.

Yeah.

Speaking of the family.

Alan.

Alan Schwartz.

Alvin Schwartz.

I apologize.

Get it right.

Yeah.

I think they might immediately reject you if you get his name wrong.

Yeah.

But he, he, this is a classic white man thing.

He was.

And I think it.

I made the point that it was like, quaint how this was the banned book of the 90s.

And I think this kind of gets to the heart of it.

He was thrilled it was banned, right?

Thrilled, yes.

He's like, that was the greatest thing in the world.

Because he, like, if you're, if you have a banned book today or a challenge book, you're getting probably death threats via all sorts of venues.

Social media, real life, who knows?

Yep.

But I can't.

I highly doubt that he was getting.

Maybe he got one or two, but.

Maybe he got a letter.

Maybe he got a strongly worded letter from pta.

Maybe the publisher got a letter.

Yeah, exactly.

But he was.

He's livin, Scott, for.

What I like about him is that his daughter said in his obituary he wanted it to be noted that he was one of the most banned authors of the 90s.

Yeah.

I was like, that's so cool.

That's also close.

Like, I mean, that's money.

Yeah.

These guys, right?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

We wouldn't know as much about Maya Kobabe and Genderqueer if it wasn't for the fact that it had been banned so many times.

People wouldn't be checking it out the way that they are.

No, no.

My mom tends to place holes on whatever is, like, in the most recent firestorm.

Nice.

And she'll be like, do you have this in your collection?

Get it for me.

And I'm like, there's a whole list.

You have to get it yourself because.

Because your mom is just like all the other cool people.

Yeah.

She does her best.

Right?

This is like.

It's the same idea.

As we've talked about this in previous episode.

Like, sometimes you want to read this thing that those people hate or don't like.

Right?

Like, because you're like, oh, well, it's gotta be good then.

Like, if this asshole.

I apologize if this person don't apologize.

Yeah.

But, you know, like, if this person, like, can't even bring themselves to read it and they wanna, like, hate it out of existence, then.

God, please.

To quote Rachel from our previous podcast episode, it's like, there should be something that offends everyone in the library.

No doubt.

No doubt.

So we'll put that to bed.

Put that to bed, I think.

On that note, let's go to commercial break.

We'll try to talk more about scary stories.

We'll talk about our favorite illustrations.

What scared Rachel the most in this episode or didn't on the other side of the ads?

All right, we're back.

Let's get back into scary stories to tell in the dark.

Hell, yeah.

What?

Is there any illustration in there that jumped at you the most?

That actually.

The horse.

The horse, yeah.

Yeah.

I would also like to second.

The horse.

The horse.

What?

What is it about the horse?

I like the side eye.

The side eye.

So Rachel said that she thought it looked like Lil Sebastian from Parks and Rec, and I took issue with that.

It's a demented little Sebastian from Paxton.

Yeah, it's like, cousin, if you put Little Sebastian in the microwave, this is what little Sebastian would look like.

Yeah, he shrank and then exploded.

He has a little bit of that Jimothy Raccoon look to him.

Jimothy Wilson.

That's excellent, actually.

It's a great, great comparison.

So I would.

I would argue that the illustration style is, like, creepy but also demented at the same time.

Like, you have to have both.

You called it the side eye.

Right.

But I think that's what's scary about.

And they mentioned this in the documentary, so I don't want to steal anyone's line there, but they talk about how all the illustrations in this book are kind of looking you in the.

They're looking at you.

Every single one.

Yeah.

Crack it.

Like, go through it.

Every single one is staring.

Confronted with your immortality.

Spindly legs.

Yeah.

I'm such a fan.

Very, like, absurdist in a way that I find, like, I would literally take that picture and frame it and put it in my house.

No doubt.

Right?

They're awesome.

They're beautiful.

Yeah, they are.

And he's a talented artist, and he's singular.

He's got his own style.

And for me, it was always those little dang.

The dangly things.

The scariest one for me is.

And as I was reading this last night, there's a few that jump out.

I think the horse is really unsettling.

Like, I don't like that horse.

I remember not liking it.

See, it's like, people are like, that's unsettled.

I'm like, no, he's charming.

He's.

Look at him.

I think the horse is trying to.

Get you looking ass.

Quite charming.

Well, she actually.

Guys, it's.

She.

Yeah, it's the witch.

So the horse.

The horse one is actually also my favorite story.

Same.

I thought it was funny one, though.

You.

Rachel is looking at a copy right here, right next to me.

The hook's a classic, though.

It's like.

Yeah, that's the most.

Those.

That was like, the one I knew before.

Yeah, man.

Door, hook, hand.

There's that, like, headlights.

Yeah.

There's some of these.

Like, that one where the ending was not what I expected.

Like, that one, I did not expect it to be that they got out alive.

The babysitter also has a weird ending.

Where it's like the headlight one got me.

Yeah.

My worst fear, being tailgated.

I loved that.

I'd Rather be stabbed.

You don't break, do you Break Check them.

I always break check.

I don't break check.

I'm scared.

Oh, no, I don't do that.

I just start speeding up.

Faster.

Speed up then.

No, yeah.

I'm like, I'll get over.

You can get past me.

It's fine.

I'll move over.

I will set my cruise control at speed limit, but I will move over.

All right, we got the horse.

What about you, Rachel?

You're.

Who is unafraid of this book?

It's.

I mean, which one spoke to you?

My favorite story was definitely.

Sorry, I sat down.

My favorite story was definitely the haunted house because it felt the most like a story to me.

It had the most story structure, which is the one where it's.

He talks about it in the notes.

It's a very traditional story where the priest is staying at the haunted house and he asks the ghost, like, does he.

He doesn't call it a ghost, though.

He calls it a haunt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved that.

That's cool.

And he asks her, like, what do you want?

And she's like, I got murdered.

My bones are in the basement.

If you could put them in the graveyard and put my finger bone in the collection plate so we can find my murderer.

And if you do that, I will tell you where all my money is.

And so he does all that, and she tells him where her money is.

And, like, that actually had all of the beats.

Can I read a line for him from it for you?

Because this is also my favorite.

She had no eyeballs, but there was a sort of blue light way back in her eye sockets, and she had no nose to her face.

Like, that was good.

It was.

It was the most story one to me.

It was one of the longer ones.

It was one of the longer ones, and it still had that little bit that was kind of funny where.

And he got taken away and after he was hung, like, the murderer.

Yeah.

Like, it's just, like, very, like, quick.

Yeah.

It also has the.

I would say the scariest illustration in my.

Yeah, it's a jump scare, too.

You change.

It's like you have two pages of text and then you turn it.

Oh, like.

Oh, yeah.

Like giant scary.

I jumped.

When I was trying to get this book, I realized that my copy at my library has been stolen.

It is missing and.

Classic band book.

Yeah.

Some kids real happy.

Some kids real happy about it.

I have all of the sequels, but we weren't discussing the sequels, so it didn't help me.

So you put a Purchase in.

So I placed a hold.

It did not arrive, so I had to do it on Libby.

So I was reading it on my phone, which does take a lot of the oomph out of it.

And so the illustrations were all separate from the stories in a way that made it less impactful.

The one that has stuck with me the most over the years is not from this book.

It's the one about the green ribbon and her head falls off.

And I still remember that illustration.

It is imprinted in my head.

And it wasn't particularly scary to me as a child.

It was just, like, captivating in a way.

It's very elegant.

And it wasn't.

It wasn't a scary story to me because, you know, they had a happy life together.

They lived a wonderful, fulfilling life.

And then he takes her ribbon off after she dies, and it pops off and he's like, oh, interesting.

Learn something new about my wife.

I like that you said it was captivating.

We mentioned the.

There's an article on.

Was it Smithsonian.com or something?

But so we have.

They quote Bianca Jones Marlon, who's an assistant professor of cell research and a principal investigator at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute.

She says about reading scary stories, our bodies often don't say, let's get out of this situation.

I think this gets to your point about the captivating thing, but rather turn the page.

Marlon goes on to explain.

If you take a step back from the biology of fear and look at the psychology of it, the human brain loves curiosity.

When we're reading a scary book, there's a layer of protection.

We're able to be curious without putting ourselves in harm's way.

Fear isn't so binary.

It's not all fight or flight.

There's something thrilling about fear, Whether it's a thrill that reminds us that we're alive or a thrill of the unknown.

Fear is not just about working against death.

It's also about enjoying life.

So, like, you weren't scared, but, like, you're like, what is.

Like, I haven't seen this before.

I love that.

Yeah.

I personally am not a huge scary person.

I'm not a huge horror person.

But I do like morbid stuff.

Yeah.

Which to me is very different.

Like, I really.

I've.

The amount of books I've read about decomposition is like, I.

More than most people.

Significantly.

Yeah.

Um, the amount that I read about decomposition while my grandmother was dying.

Um, like, I was doing some processing and it was about the physical processes.

Yeah.

But, like, my friend made me watch Hereditary.

And I.

That's so good.

Immediately.

It's really good.

Such a Fine.

Really good.

I. I haven't seen it.

No.

Too scared.

Me neither.

I was so scared.

I really think, what is it?

Toni Colletti.

Isn't she the one in that?

Yeah.

So good.

She should have with her son.

And I'm like, that's another.

I am your mother.

She was robbed.

Visceral.

Her performance is visceral in that.

It's tremendous.

Tony.

Robbed of an Oscar.

If anyone has wants to see her in a really excellent role, is with so much range, like 50 states of terror or United States of Terror, something like that.

Where she plays, like, a character with multiple personality disorder.

And she just embodies every role so fully.

I love her.

Yeah.

I don't have a lot of horror in me either.

I'm not a big scary per.

I don't like.

I've never read an adult book that's meant to be scary, ever.

I read children's books around to be scary, and sometimes those are too scary for me.

Yeah.

Wow.

I don't want to be scared.

It's like, I think there's enough in life that's scary.

Namingly, like a mortgage.

That's scary.

Yes, bro.

Let's talk about that.

I'm like, those 7% interest rates, boo.

Yeah, no one wants to hear that.

But like an actual.

Like.

Like a book.

I'm like, no, I want happy things.

Why?

That's the thing, though.

I think for the people like myself who are, like, obsessed with this book kind of, and it, like, made them the way they are in some ways, I guess, or at least led them down a path.

Like, that stuff doesn't scare me anymore.

It's like a comfort food.

Like horror movies, these horror anything.

It's just like, we went to see, like, the Conjuring for the three of us, my family and my son looked over at me.

He's like, why are you smiling?

And I was like, because.

Because I'm having a great time.

A great time.

Look at all that blood.

Yeah.

It's just.

It's not.

It's fun.

Like, I don't know.

It's.

It's an escape.

And it's.

I don't know, like you said, it's captivating.

I do think that's like, a bonding experience.

My first time watching the Conjuring was like family movie night.

We brought down the projector and everything we watched that was family movies.

Family movie night.

My mom did not like it.

My dad loved it.

And then we watched the whole movie.

And then my sister was like so terrified of it.

She was back, her mistake, back to the door of her bedroom and playing her guitar to like calm herself down.

She was so anxious.

And I was like, this is my opportunity.

This is my moment.

And so I like creep up behind her.

She can't hear me at all.

And then I jump her.

She screams so loud.

I was like, this is just.

That's awesome.

I love like a good scare.

I love Halloween stuff like that spooky season.

All of this stuff I think is just great.

My.

My favorite experience I just have to speak to scary stories to tell in the dark is when I was in my grad program and doing my field observations.

I went to Fairport, joined a parents shout out and the librarian there had done a blackout of the whole library.

She blocked out all the windows, all the walls.

And then she had like black lights everywhere.

And then she brought in the 8th graders to read scary stories to the 6th graders.

And then we like hand picked all the scariest of the sets of these by Alvin Schwartz and we picked the scariest ones that we read them.

And then I was in like a red queen get up.

Because she was like the Mad Hatter and her aide was Alice.

And so I had like read like one of them and the red queen get up and I had like the flashlight under my face just like you're supposed to.

And it was like I actually scared them.

Like, it's awesome.

Yeah.

Those 11 year olds were terrified of what I had to say.

You're like scary.

Ever since then, I've wanted to replicate that in my school library.

I've been like, one of these days these middle schoolers won't see it coming.

I think it's you.

You got this.

Gave us the full picture too.

It's like it's such a bonding experience.

You gave them that.

They're like, they will remember that kind of thing.

Like they're all together like for like the.

It's horror stuff is.

Is great as a bonding thing.

And part of that is because it gets your heart rate so elevated and it just.

It's like a physiological like, oh, this is the person I went through this experience with.

Exactly.

I think you think you are actually being chased by a tiger.

Your body can't tell the difference.

I think it's also like, yes, that.

But I think it's also you.

Your mind is kind of blown like in a very basic way of like, oh my God.

I thought this place was just like my parents and my grandparents and My friends at school.

But, like, you could eat a toe that you found in the ground.

Like, that's possible in this world.

And then that makes your imagination so much.

And it definitely, like, makes me think, like, my dad, one of the quote unquote scary stories he read when we were kids, other than, like, John Bellers, was like, the Dark Frog and the Frog and Toad collection, which is like, the dark frog trying to eat frog and toad.

And my dad, I think so much of, like, what makes, like, telling a good horror story to children, like, scary is, like, the performance of it.

You know, if you're just reading it and you're like, oh, okay, that happens.

But, like, when you have, like, your dad and he's like, the dark frog is getting very hungry, you're just like, oh, my God, the dark frog's gonna eat me.

And you're four, and it's like, this is awesome.

Yeah, it's just so.

So, like, fun and bonding.

It is.

I had a lot of memories like that, too, growing up.

But, like, I remember uncles, like, like, telling stories with the guitar and stuff.

And, like, they had my dad, you know, someone else's uncle, like, would come in, like, pretend to be attacked by a werewolf or something.

Yeah, that's awesome.

But that's.

I'm glad you brought that up because, like, I really wanted to get to this too.

Like, is.

And this is another question for Rachel, too.

Like, the folklore aspect of it, like, all the.

The.

The meat that's behind this, like, is there.

Are we losing that now?

Like, do you think, Like, I feel like we're in this such a shift where, like, this.

The storytelling and, like, the.

Because I don't think I could do it myself, but I remember my dad and my uncles and grandfathers and those people, like, those generations being able to tell stories off the top of their heads and, like, deliver too.

You know what I mean?

Like, I could do it.

Yeah.

I believe that.

Yeah.

But.

But are people doing it enough in general?

Is that still happening?

Or is that just our little experience in our, you know, world to be.

Given this question and not know how to answer it?

I do feel that you have blown me up too much in your head.

I don't.

Well, so.

So I'm thinking about the Jeanette Winterson book that I read recently.

Recently Ish.

One Aladdin Two Lamps.

And she talks a lot about the lost of storytelling traditions as an oral tradition.

With the increase of literacy, which I don't actually like, when Aladdin 2 lamps, it was, like, very mediocre.

But I thought that part of it was interesting because when people can't reference things easily, they do have to memorize things more.

So you do have a much stronger memorization culture in lower literacy cultures.

But we're in a literacy crisis, so it might come back.

And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pin that question just on you, but it was, you know, just thinking about the scary stories.

Yeah, go ahead.

I did.

This was actually something that I thought about when I was preparing for this today because there is a really interesting quote, I think, in the Smithsonian article about the amount of work that Schwartz did in order to find all of these stories.

He.

It talks about how he went to university, like dorm rooms.

Not dorm rooms, but he went to universities and he went to, like, different communities.

100.

He traveled around to get these stories.

A lot of it's in the documentary.

Again, I recommend.

Yeah.

And I think the literacy crisis is.

Is absolutely a factor in this, but also, like, the pervasiveness of just information at your fingertips.

Like AI.

I think too, like, the lack of the Internet community, not, like the total lack of it.

Like, I definitely think we still have community, but I think about this a lot in relation to, like, local legends of Rochester.

Like, you see it on the Rochester subreddit all the time.

People.

There's a question, someone posed it, like, weird things that happen the same, like,.

What are weird things happen in Rochester?

What are the Rochester's ghost stories?

You know, and you're like, oh, the Fox sisters or the White lady at the Duran beach or something like that.

And it's just like, you know, but like, maintaining like, cultural and local legends, I just think is such an enriching experience.

And like, having those, like, you know, within the broader Rochester community, but also like, within, like, as small as, like a town's community.

Like, what are our local cryptids?

What are our local legends?

And like, doing what you can to, like, maintain and encourage that.

I think this is like, highlighting how important it is to make sure that kids don't have access to the Internet at a young age on their own.

Because if the information that they're getting is from their community, the people around them, the kids in their neighborhood, they can hear these scary stories on the bus.

Like, that's great because that's maintaining that community information and maintaining that.

That idea of just things being passed down from kid to kid.

I'm always trying to spread a rumor in the school that there's a library ghost.

Yeah, that's what I want.

I'm like, guys, there's a.

There's definitely one at one of the public libraries I work at.

There's definitely library ghost for sure, because books have, like, randomly fallen off shelves.

And I'm like, got a ghost, guys.

I created a monster.

On our family vacation we take every year with one the 18 people in a cottage, as you said, like your worst nightmare.

But it was called the Three Eyed Whistler, and it really.

It stuck.

They're like, still talk about the Three Eyed Whistler like, ten years later.

I'm like, yeah, my dad, my brother had a birthday party, and we had like, 20 kids at our house playing with, like, Nerf guns.

And my dad was like, let's play ghost in the graveyard.

But he's like, before we do that, let me tell you the story of this house.

And then he makes up this story about our house that we used to live in, about how it was like a son's house, but as he built the house, his wife kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker.

And as he put the final nail in the attic, she died.

And then he went mad with grief and anger and rage.

And he spends the rest of his life pulling out the nails in the attic, trying to bring her back to life.

And he'd go up to the crawl space.

What's your dad's name?

We got him on the spot.

I don't know.

I can ask him.

There's like, tons of rusty nails on the floor of, like, her crawl space.

And it freaked out some of the boys so bad that their mother called my mother after and was like, your dad was bad.

He was.

He.

They can't sleep.

They were too scared.

That's awesome.

Your dad's a band book come to life.

It was just awesome.

Your dad was really good.

Yeah, that's where you get it from, huh?

Can I read one of the folklore lines from the Smithsonian article?

Of course.

Here we go.

Here we go.

So people.

People often think folklore is shared among people in the hills and hollers of places like West Virginia, says James Deutsch, curator of folk life and popular culture at the Smithsonian center for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage.

Well, yes, but it's also shared in the apartments and co ops of New York City.

Different groups adapt folklore to their circumstances.

Love that.

Yeah, love it.

Like, folklore isn't.

Isn't just the small communities.

No, it's everywhere.

Yeah, and it is.

There's small communities everywhere, though.

Like, it's like there's small communities within gigantic, sprawling communities.

And you think about, like, the Mythology of, like, the concept of, like, a vampire.

Yeah.

You know, like, subtle hint for what we might talk about at some point.

I like that.

That's your.

It's kind of, like, great, but, like.

Like, so many cultures have different, like, concepts of what a vampire is, you know, it's, like, so much more than just our understanding of it.

It's like.

No, that has a broader cultural reach.

And it's, like, so cool, like, how cultures all over the world have, like, their own ghost stories, mythologies, and, like, monsters and, like, things.

I just think it's so awesome.

Folklore is very fun and interesting in the fact that it taps into very universal fears and obsessions.

So scary stories to tell in the dark is largely about the fear of death, which is, you know, if you're just going, death, ooh, aren't you scared?

Like.

But the fact that they can be found everywhere is because it's a universal fear.

And one of the thoughts that I found most interesting, one of the songs was one that had originally popped up with World War I, and it was soldiers would sing that as they were going to war.

And it was the.

You might be leaving in a coffin.

And it was the way that they were preparing themselves for this, you know, incredibly dangerous and difficult thing that they were doing for no reason.

You read.

You said you read the notes on that.

Yeah, I love a notes.

The notes are often my favorite part of a book.

Yes.

But, like, you think about, like, the.

Pinochle on your snout.

Pinocchle on your snout.

And it got modified as the world moved away from such a high casualty experience and to just like, hey, what happens to bodies is, like, really gross and whipping cream.

Do you want me to read the.

The World War I version?

Sure.

All right.

So it's the Hearst song.

So in the notes it says.

Although many adults are familiar with the song, it is best known in elementary schools.

Oh.

But During World War I, it was a war song that was sung by servicemen from American England.

One version went this way.

Did you ever think as the hearse rolls by that some of these days you must surely die?

They'll take you away in a big black hack.

They'll take you away but they won't bring you back.

And your eyes drop out and your teeth fall in and the worms crawl over your mouth and chin and the worms crawl out and the worms crawl in and your limbs drop off limb by limb.

So that's the World War I person.

And then it turns into pinnacle on your snout.

Pinochle.

What's the Pinochle.

Pinochle, Yeah.

I remember asking my taking this book to my grandmother because we stayed at my grandma's house a lot after school and being like, what is, what's this word?

Like, she's like, oh, pinocchle.

But then she had to read the thing.

She's like, what the fuck?

What are you reading?

What is this?