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.

The Owl Service by Alan Garner. Never finished it, but read loads of similar books. Seemed to have an overbearing sinister air to it which I really couldn't handle.

Yes, The Owl Service is really creepy. I was thinking about recommending to DD but decided I would get the blame for her nightmares.

The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston

Must go back and read it as an adult, but from what I remember there are some very spooky bits.

Yes to The Owl Service. Need to re-read that now too!

Also one called 'Midnight Is A Place' which iirc was about tiny children working in the cotton factories, or something of that ilk. Stayed with me for a very long time - but not long enough to recall it properly now.

Judy Blume - Forever.
Was absolutely petrified about losing my virginity!!!

(Also kind of loved it )

I am a complete wuss about scary books and films. The Owl Service and Marianne dreams both terrified me.

Others not mentioned so far are the fairy tales by the brothers Grimm (especially the one about the dog with eyes as big as saucers, for some reason) and also a John Wyndham short story called 'Consider her ways' where a woman goes into a future where men have died out, and some women are stimulated into producing litters of babies by parthenogenesis. The Midwich cuckoos, also by John Wyndham was another one I found pretty frightening.

As I say, a complete wuss, with far too much imagination.

Another one traumatised by The Owl Service. Ghost of Thomas Kempe gave me a few nightmares too.

Does anyone know of a book about a child who had a voice speaking to him in his head, the voice was called Enoch... that's all I can remember but I do know it was scary!

The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy by Penelope
Lively is even scarier that Thomas Kempe.

Children of the dust is brilliant too!

An Enemy at Green Knowe and The Owl Service, I think.

I loved Marianne Dreams and Charlotte Sometimes but I don't remember being scared by them.

Midnight is a Place is by Joan Aiken and there are children working in a carpet factory. The hero asks why they don't use machines because it's very dangerous and gets the reply "Childer's cheaper."

Jaws Peter Benchley on the beach at Bournemouth in 1977. I rememeber my mum saying "Are you not going for a paddle?" and I had to go for a walk on the pier I was so freaked out!!

Valerie by Robert Weston (I think) about boy's girlfriend who died and came back as a ghost to sap his life force.

Some rudimentary googling tells me that this was actually The Promise by Robert Westall.

Well - it was a long time ago!

The Cement Garden. I must have read it when I was about ten, God knows where I got it from!

i ploughed my through most of the Point Horror series and found the first '13 tales of horror' the most chilling. loved them

I loved Children of the dust, I re-read it recently and it was still brilliant. Also liked B for Butterfly, plague 99 and the sequel...I think I was a dark child, I must have been about 10 reading those?

Empty world was way scarier though, the disease was a rapid aging thingy and the descriptions of small children turning into old people in hours was chilling....

I had nightmares about The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe for years.....being turned to stone.

I read lots of James Herbert/Steven King at 14 -18 and couldn't finish The Rats - in fact I still haven't and I will be 40 this week!

They are the only two books that have truly scared me.

Just read the thread.....The Owl Service is one of my childhood books I have kept to pass on to my children. I don't remember it at all, but now I will re-read it before giving it to dd1 (10)

Loved Point Horror - especially The Beach House

Thinking of rats, actually the 1984 scene in room 101, the idea of that contraption, urgh!

Have a rather long list now of books I will never read, though am intrigued by Children of Dust.

The Man In The Iron Mask.

An old film version of it I saw on TV - I must have been quite young, and the idea of having an iron mask clamped onto me for evermore (and being locked up in a tower) haunted me for years.
The man died in the end by strangulation from his own beard. I still find it chilling at 30!

Sorry, just googled, and the book was by Alexander Dumas - there's been loads of film versions though.

Yet another vote for Marianne Dreams - apparently the author was a child psychologist hence the very good understanding of how children of that age feel. Did anyone see the film adaptatin, Paperhouse? That was interesting because it wasn't a page by page adaptation but it did bring out the kind of muddled adolescent-awakening-sexuality that's underlying in the book (no, not with snogging scenes, far more low-level).
I remember being very frightened by the first of the Armada Ghost Books, particularly School for the Unspeakable and House of the Nightmare - and reading HP Lovecraft's SHadow Over Innsmouth at about 9 and being petrified of the mutant dust. But I was another of these ghost-story-obsessed kids.
Ooh, who remembers Misty comic?

I loved Misty. I didn't come across Marianne Dreams until someone recommended it on here last year and I bought it for DD (who still hasn't read it!) I found it quite spooky and would have loved it at age 10/11.

I didn't read it, but remember seeing the cover of Carrie (Stephen King)in the 70s and I couldn't sleep as I was so scared by it.