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.

BalloonSlayer - you remember it much better than me. Scary scary story.

A Graham Greene short story, "The End of the Party", that I read when I was twelve or so. It scared the crap out of me (it's the one with the twins playing hide-and-seek, for anyone else who's read it. I have been roundly castigated on message boards before for reminding other posters of its existence and hence scaring the crap out of them once more by reviving the memory... )

Read and loved Charlotte Sometimes and The Chrysalids (although my sister and I appeared to be in a minority in thinking that the society they were "rescued" by at the end was Not All That Great, actually, which I think is Wyndham's intention). Didn't read Marianne Dreams until I was an adult but can see how it would stay with you (it's one of the most asked-about books on the Abebooks BookSleuth forum).

'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen', anyone? Alan Garner again and MUCH scarier than The Owl Service.

Also the 'Dark is Rising' series by Susan someone. The first one is particularly good.

Susan Cooper! Yes.

And yes to the Weirdstone of Brisingamen too, I don't remember being scared by it but I do remember loving it.

The End of the Party dreadful dreadful racing brain on that for nights and nights afterwards. I had completely forgotten that.

The film that claims to be of "The Dark Is Rising" is best avoided, though. As one reviewer commented at the time, they only changed three things from the book: 1. They made the hero American rather than British; 2. They made him 13 rather than 11; 3. They changed the whole of the rest of the plot.

And they did it for reasons that showed they'd never understood the bloody books in the first place (Grrrrr).

Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath (?) were both good although I wasn't too scared. I think I read The Owl Service too young as most of what it's actually about went completely over my head and I just found it dull. I should read it again now that I'm more capable of following the nuances.

It. Gave me a fear of clowns that has never really gone away.

On Amazon Marianne Dreams and Charlotte Sometimes are "frequently bought together". Is it a bunch of MNetters who are buying these en masse?

I've never read either but am seriously considering buying them!

I cant remember any specific books from childhood, but I was addicted to reading the Misty annuals.

I was terrified of the dark as a child, so of course I spent every spare minute reading as many age-appropriate ghost stories and horror novels as I could lay my hands on Lots of 'true ghost stories' about haunted places and who the ghosts were...there was one particularly horrid one about a 'white lady' type ghost who had been a bride playing hide and seek on her wedding night. She climbed into a large oak chest in a dusty side room and the lid clicked shut on her and locked...no one ever found her...eek.

SGB I loved Paperhouse, would like to see it again actually. Quite chilling in places. "I'm blind!"

Anyone got the Strewelpeter book with Victorian moralistic rhymes- the one with little Sucka thumv, who got his thumbs cut off by the Scissorman, is accompanied by a picture of a boy holding up his hands with bleeding stumps!!
Stopped my son sucking his thumb....

That should read Suckathumb- sorry

Oh don't watch this then re. thumbectomy terror.

I remember the Strewelpeter book - the cover picture terrified me. Was it a long haired man with very long fingernails, or is my memory really playing tricks? When I was in my early teens I reads loads of books by Ruth M Arther - they were all spooky I loved them.

I was looking at some Edward Gorey books too. Although the drawings are really brilliant I find the books very unpleasant.

cyteen, I remember the one with the lady on her wedding day, I read that one in a true horror stories type thing another story from that book that stood out was about a cyclist sheltering from a storm in an old farm house in France and decaying PJ's that were laying on the sofa coming to life.

I recently read the first chapter of The Silver Crown by Robert O'Brien, which is such a good book, to DS1.

He cried with fear and made me leave the room. On the way out I kissed him and banged him on the face with my necklace. Then I gave him some lipbalm which stung.

'for goodness sake get out mother' was I think what he was trying to say (through his tears). I am mother of the year!

Yep, I read both of those true ghost stories. I used to read alot of those books; if they were illustrated I would be all tense when I turned the page in case there was a spooky picture!

I remember a terrifying one about a house in Berkeley Square where two people volunteered to spend the night and one of them was thrown to their death on the railings outside by some spooky disembodied claws!

Reading that back it sounds pretty lame, but the amplifying effect of being 8 and reading under your covers with a torch should not be underestimated.

The Tiswas Book of Ghastly Ghosts - a collection of extremely spooky short stories. Still have it, and still wouldn't dare read it at bedtime. It has the Phantom Flan Flinger on the cover, I believe.

house of stairs sounds bonkers

It sounds quite a lot like Cube

The Silver Crown scared the shit out of me

and A Wrinkle In Time

i remember something about a boy growing a grandmother or something.

also the Brain Sharpeners scared me