Year 8 Horror....

[timetosmile]

...is the genre my son got to review next month in the class 'lucky dip'...in an attempt by the teacher to get them reading styles they usually wouldn't.

Steven King et all are still too scary for me aged 41 just over 30, and I have yet to watch Hitchcock's The Birds to the end, so I am in no place to advise him on his choice!

He is a confident reader, but I don't want him reading something that will really mess with his mind and make him keep the light on at night and a 'properly scary' way.

I remember our drama teacher made the class watch 'Nightmare on Elm Street' as an end-of-term 'treat' aged 12 back in the old days....not really what I want for him!

Any suggestions? Short story collections? Poe?

DD (11) has read the 5th wave and didn't appear to suffer nightmares - generally she reads adventure/fantasy/sci-fi stuff, and this is probably actually nearer to the Hunger Games, but might 'count' IYSWIM

Is Darren Shan considered horror

I objected to Year 6 dd reading done of them but Year 8 would probably be fine.

Or back to the original Mary Shelley Frankenstein

Thanks both. I think they want him to read failry 'mainstream' horror/gothic .
Hunger games/dystopian fantasy is not quite the thing which is a shame as he has read them
Will look at Darren Shan, thanks.

Joseph Delaney's Spook's Apprentice' should tick all the boxes.

Dd has been waiting since Sugust for the spoons apprentice to arrive at the library. (Her old school put it on their recommended summer reading list)

Darren Shan would be fine for year 8 (so 12/13 year olds) I would choose the vampire ones first but really he should read all of them to get the whole story. The first demonata book - Lord Loss is ok as a stand alone book but it is quite full on right from the start.

Anthony Horowitz does some horror fiction aimed at young teens, particularly the Power of Five books.

How did I forget about the Horowitz books! Yes they are great and finally finished after a very long wait (and the rather annoying change of cover desigh for the last book of the series)

Unfortunately DS grew out of the Horowitz horror books before the series was finished, but I might get the last two for DD in due course. However, I think the OP's son has probably already found his reading material, since the thread was started a few weeks ago - I just noticed the date.