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.

Any story my mum came up with. Especially The Monkeys Paw.

A Wrinkle in Time was quite scary, but the first time I "read" it was having it read to a group of us outside on a sunny day so I didn't feel the fear until the time I read it by myself, by which stage I already knew it turned out all right in the end. I really loved that book, I think it may have been the turning point that made me a sci fi reader as an adult.

I hated Chicken Licken!! The thought that the world was going to fall in terrified me!
Also the pictures in the Ladybird version Of Rumplestiltskin!!!!!!!!

When I was at primary school someone brought in the Arthur C Clarke mags and there was a huge article about spontaneous combustion with pictures of people who had combusted at home. This frightened me for over a decade!!!

Sorry, sorry! Usually I read a whole thread before commenting, so why not this time? Aaaah! I didn't even read the OP, can't believe it, so my post is inappropriate!!

Elidor, by Alan Garner

The Owl Service

In my early teens I read a book on Hiroshima, a factual account of several survivors over the course of 24h.

All three would still give me nightmares nowadays. Oddly enough, none of the Wyndham books do or ever have done, althoughthe films of his books scare me stiff.

When I was 8 my big brother was reading The Lord of the Rings, so I read it too. Definitely not a good idea!

Yes, The Monkey's Paw is terrifying.

Thanks Moomin, for the reminder about Midnight Is A Place - I wasn't far off with a cotton factory then! I remember being appalled and gripped in equal measure whilst reading it.

flowers in the attic by virginia andrews,, god it scared me and had me captivated all at the same time.

I read all the series

There was a childrens programme called Look and Read. They read a story called Dark Towers:-very very scarey!

Also the Boy from Space -also on Look & Read

Struwwelpeter (sp?!)

Although looking at clips of Look&Read on youtube it's no wonder some of us turned out the way we did.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdzC_VhjYBs&feature=related

There was a point horror story (believe it was in one of the collections of short stories) called Collect Call... only vague recollections of the plot, but something to do with a dead person leaving messages on an answerphone. Scared me shitless.

I also managed to scare myself when I was about 11 by writing a horror story for school which involved an attic. I couldn't sleep for days after I'd written it and my mother was very bemused at how much I'd managed to frighten myself with my own story

there were the stories by edgar allen poe especially the one about the beating heart under the floor boards, it give me nightmaresI must have been quite young maybe 9.

i loved a wrinkle in time. and playing beattie bow.

and rats and flowers in the attic. the rats bit in the forest is set quite near where i live.

m r james scared me to death - oh whistle and i'll come to you is terrifying.

I remember a book called The Almost Year. It was about a girl who stayed with a family and they made her feel unwelcome and a poltergeist (generated unknowingly by her) started up in the house.

That really scared me! But it was a good book too because it covered the subject of racism to some degree too.

The Red Shoe mention has just sent the hairs on my arms up! I loved Charlotte Sometimes and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe. Grinny freaked me out a bit - it just seemed quite plausible! I also remember a pictorial Bible and there was a particularly horrible rendering of the devil in the Temptation in the Wilderness story. I used to keep it under my bed for some strange reason and look at it when I wanted to be scared. Embarrassingly enough, I also was quite frightened by Virginia Andrews books (My Sweet Audrina and Flowers in the Attic). Shame.

I don't remember being frightened by Thomas Kempe at all but remember v little of the story.

The Grimm story about the pot of basil (or something) made me squirm a bit.

Did anyone read a book called Grinny, about a boy who had a great aunt living in his house who was an alien? It was really chilling but a great read. It's by Nicholas Fisk. Might go off & find my very dog-eared 1970s copy & reread it!

Roald Dahl's short stories - mainly 'The Swan' about a young boy who was chained to a railway track by two bullies, then survived a train going over him, only for the bullies to kill a swan and tie the swan's wings to the boys arms - he eventually, bleeding and half-dead, flew home to his Mum.

There was another Roald Dahl one about parents feeding their baby daughter so much royal jelly the baby turned into a bee. And the girl being imprisoned in a picture forever, by The Witches, also haunted me.

Wonderful writer, but he had some dark images that stayed with me some two decades. Looking forward to introducing dd to them one day!

ooh yes i read grinny. didn't her face come off? nicholas fisk underrated imo.

Omg Fondue - I haven't read that Swan one. Remember the bee one though and a horrible one about tatoos and one about fingers.

The Owl Service, yes, but does no one else remember this? My copy was called the witch doll, but I had some trouble tracking it down, I must have been about 12, actually I don't remember much of the story except the image of this evil wooden doll, the story was so scary I was even scared of the book, a little bit, as if the doll was real and somehow in the book....may have to get the book and read it again now...

Also read The Rats by Herbert. I was about 11. Flippin' 'eck, what was I thinking??? Every now and then when I'm waiting on the London Underground I imagine giant rats are trundling down the track.

Mine was 'the farthest away mountain' by Lynne Reid Banks.

I think I heard it on the radio and then had the book.

also 'Z for Zachariah' by Robert C O'Brien, another Nuclear one.

Two horrible Roald Dahl stories stick in my mind, one about a loony dentist and someone ending up strapped in his chair for ever and ever amen, and one called Skin.