What was the scariest/most chilling book you read as a child?

[VintageGardenia]

And did you love it or hate it?

My ds is 11 and doesn't like reading scary books one bit - I hated them too when I was a child, I still do really. But the book that scared me most as a child was called Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, I can remember every bit of it and it still gives me the creeps to pass a tall boulder.

Just wondering what other chilling books there were.

Does anybody remember When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs? I was 15 I think when I first read it and remember just being speechless at the end of it.

And Brother In The Land by Robert Swindells too. Not so much scary but totally heart-rending.

Brother In The Land, still haunts me.

Brother In The Land, still haunts me.

I wonder if there is actually only one copy of The Rats in circulation and we all read it?

DUST!

Good old wikipedia.

And another one that my dh has just reminded me about - House of Stairs

I did read some disturbing stuff as a child!

When The Wind Blows - very good animated film too.

Empty World by John Christopher was another of those post-disaster ones. Some illness I think killed almost everyone, the survivors looted Harrods for food and children drove cars and so on. I quite fancied that life.

Under the mountain by Maurice Gee

House Of Stairs - fab - I loved it! And his other ones, one of which I think was called The Interstella Pigs iirc.

Came on here to post Marianne Dreams, but see I've been beaten to it. Freaked me out but I read it again and again!

Under the mountain by Maurice Gee

lord of the rings

there was a book called 'playing beattie bow' which was a bit eerie - but not scary

Beattie Bow - that was the one where the children sang a strange rhyme about a ghost-girl, yes? And then she appeared?

When I was very small (probably about 6 or 7) I picked up my Dad's copy of Jaws and only managed to read the first page before putting it down, terrified.

Was it the music that freaked you out bran?

I bought a compilation of horror stories from The Chip Club at school. Had a Poe story in it about the bricked up cat. ALl the stories scared me witless.

I bought a compilation of horror stories from The Chip Club at school. Had a Poe story in it about the bricked up cat. ALl the stories scared me witless.

Now LOTR I found scary but in an okay way - like I knew all along it would end up fine.

Completely agree with Marianne Dreams, Empty World and Children of Dust. All very unsettling and can't believe they've all been mentioned on here already!

I still have my childhood copies of all 3. MD was I think the scariest but I was very young when I read it. I can vividly remember the illustrations.

Them

"Not the light! Not the light! Not the light!"

Still sends shivers down my spine! I can't have been older than 7 when I read it because I definitely read it before we moved to South Africa.

Seems I missed out on some other scary books though.... and I've always been a huge reader. But Marianne Dreams really stands out, perhaps because I was so young when I read it.

I didn't find LOTR scary. I think because it felt impossible. Whereas there was a dreadful realism about e.g. Marianne Dreams (don't mean to harp on that one). Even though it was fantasy it had this sort of psychological accuracy or something and I think was very well tuned (do I mean attuned?) to the way tennish, elevenish people feel about things.

My worst bits were:

when she drew the eyes

when they noticed that They were getting closer

Oh Christ I won't be able to sleep tonight.

I was just thnking of 'children of the dust ' and couldn't remember its title. Thanks growlygus

JANEITE! yes exactly - never met anyone else who read it.