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Children's books

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Original poster

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

208 replies

VintageGardenia · 08/09/2009 19:42

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.

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Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:20

It's odd, how you came across stuff in those days, it was really by lurking in secondhand bookshops and getting surprises at Christmas. My ds1 gets to know about books via the internet, publicity stunts in bookshops, etc. If he'd a book he adored like Marianne Dreams there's no way he would miss the fact that it had a sequel.

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LadyGlencoraPalliser · 09/09/2009 12:33

VG - I lived in a small village so my only access to new books was the small rack of Armada paperbacks in the newsagent and an annual visit to the big town 40 miles away which had a proper bookshop. Once I had read through the tiny children's section in the village bookshop, I was on my own - persuaded the librarian to give me an adult ticket aged 8 or 9.
This had two consequences. I was reading totally unsuitable stuff like The Day of the Triffids age nine (also Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, the Brontes, Austen, Orwell, Huxley etc!)
and I have spent the past 12 years since becoming a parent catching up on hundreds of children's books that I never read first time round. Which is great!

ilovemydogandmrobama · 09/09/2009 12:35

Flowers in the Attic....

Cies · 09/09/2009 12:41

yyy flowers in the attic - when the crazy grandmother poured tar on the girl's hair. Freaky book.

And earlier on, The Witches by Roald Dahl was scary.

WinkyWinkola · 09/09/2009 12:43

This scared me witless. I read it when I was about 7. Very foolish

Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:43

Yes I remember begging for an adult library ticket too! The children's section was tiny in our library - and we were in a city. Remember they used to take out the slip and put it in your ticket, the number of times I watched them do that, then stamp the return date. Funny I hadn't thought of e.g. Sherlock Holmes being unsuitable, but of course all those murders... I loved all those too, Wyndham & A. Christie, all the Waugh and Mitford books, anything that came in an old Penguin jacket because my father collected the first editions.

Oddly the only thing I really remember vividly about Flowers in the Attic - apart from the general plot - was the tar in Cathy's hair & the brother weeing on it . It was a great hand-around at school, that one.

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Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:45

x'd you there Cies!

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colditz · 09/09/2009 12:45

Grinny
H p Lovecraft - The colours

Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:48

In fact, come to think of it, the greatest source of books was my parents' shelves, because I had so little disposable income (trans: zero) so if I wanted to read I had to read what was there.

I remember reading Myra Breckenridge when I was about 13 and my father walking past & saying "Your taste in literature is catholic" but he didn't take it from me. There must have been sex in it, I can't think why else I would have wanted to read it!

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Niecie · 09/09/2009 12:51

I loved Marianne's Dreams! Occasionally have a look at Amazon and wonder if I should buy it again.

Our teacher read it to us when we were in Yr 4. It has always stuck with me.

I always wanted to know exactly what was wrong with Marianne that necessitated her stayingin bed for so long.

I also read The Rats and other James Herbert books as a young teen. I really liked it but I still don't like rats just in case you accidentally corner them and they go for your jugular which realistically is very unlikely I know!!

LittleWhiteWolf · 09/09/2009 12:51

I went crying into my parents room aged 7 after reading half of The Witches.

I spent ages 7-14 in Germany and they have an author called Gudrun Pausewang who wrote loads of books aimed at teens about war and surviving nucleur holocausts. I read 2 of her books called Die Letzte Kinder Von Schewerbon (The Last Children of Schewerbon) and Die Wolke (The Cloud). The former was about 3 sisters who survived a nucleur attack and detailed a few years after. It ended with the lead sister, the narrator talking about her hair falling out in chunks, so she knew she had radiation sickness. Chilling.
The latter I vividly remember the opening chapters where two children hear of this cloud which is heading for them, which is some kind of poison gas. The older sister tells her brother that they'll be ok as its smelly and looks like a black cloud, when she really knows its odorless and clear. It also deals with their parents being stuck on on the autobahn in the path of the cloud who die in their car.

I also read Point Horror books (90's teen) and there were some called Point Horror Unleashed which were meant to be scarier. One of those gave me chills...think it was called The Watchman...?

colditz · 09/09/2009 12:52

The colour out of Space

LittleWhiteWolf · 09/09/2009 12:54

And Baba Yaga!

Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:57

Actually the books which really, properly scared me were the concentration camp memoirs. I went through a phase of reading them, Elie Wiesel's Night was one, and I particularly remember Return to Auschwitz by Kitty Hart (come to think of it it might have been a fictionalised account?), she was sent there as a teenager with her mother.

They both survived. I suppose it was because it was the story of a teenaged girl that it stuck.

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Original poster
VintageGardenia · 09/09/2009 12:58

Oh God colditz I've read that, shivers.

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lupa · 09/09/2009 12:59

Oh yes, Marianne Dreams is the first one that springs to mind.

I was completely freaked out by The Moomins for some reason - not the story, just the pictures - I had to read it with my hand over the illustrations.

My sister was terrified of Roald Dahl's The Witches. I had an audiobook and she used to sneak up and sit outside my bedroom door to listen - not so bad as long as you're not actually in the room apparently.

DwayneDibbley · 09/09/2009 13:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

JulesJules · 09/09/2009 13:05

Definitely Marianne Dreams for me, too. I used to be scared to look out of the window at night... in fact, I might be a bit scared to look out of the window tonight - this thread has brought it all back...

Also the L.M. Boston books, they were truly spooky.

And a John Wyndham book which must have belonged to my parents, The Chrysalids. Probably shouldn't have read it, that gave me nightmares as well.

tothesea · 09/09/2009 13:15

So does no-one recognise the story about the child that had a something in his brain that spoke to him and it was called Enoch?
I read it at school, have never quite forgotten it but because it was read in class I don't remember what it was called/author.
tothesea wonders if perhaps was a dream

squilly · 09/09/2009 13:16

I loved Charlotte Sometimes. The Cure did a record with the same title and I'm sure the video echoed the story. I thought it was such a cool thing to happen, swapping with someone from the past, and it was very poignant.

I also loved all the Wyndham books, but was terrified by nuclear bombs (guess that was just indicative of what was affecting our generation) so I hated The Chrysalids. It was a bit too close to the truth for comfort...I could imagine us all blowing ourselves to bits, then regressing into old fashioned, God Fearing communities who had no tolerance. Scared the wits out of me.

leftangle · 09/09/2009 13:28

There is a short story by Gerald Durrell (yes really) about a thing coming out of the mirror, absolutely terrified me for years. I think the worst thing was I read a lot of Gerald Durrell books and they are autobiographical so I found it very hard not to think that this story must be true too. Was in a book of short stories but can't remember the title of the book or the story now. Not sure I could face reading it again even now.

KerryMumbles · 09/09/2009 13:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

putyoursocksON · 09/09/2009 13:29

tothesea,
Think it might have been 'chocky' rather than 'enoch' - another John Wyndham classic about a boy who is 'posessed' by an alien voice - it's sooooooo good!

BalloonSlayer · 09/09/2009 13:30

Does anyone remember the Gerald Durrel story (he tells it as if it's true) about the man staying in a chateau? There is a monster in the mirror which kills the reflections of the cat, dog and parrot. And then the man's reflection. And then it notices him in its mirror and tries to come through to get him. He has to run around breaking all the mirrors.

I only knew one other person who had read it, and he would never have a mirror in his bedroom, or if he did he had to have it tilted so he couldn't see it from his bed. (And he was grown up by then.)

putyoursocksON · 09/09/2009 13:32

Visitor at Green Knowe.
Grinny - holy mamoly that was terrifying.