Books That Terrified Me as a Child

Hello fellow bookworms!

Confession: I haven't finished reading Enna Burning. I'm about halfway through. This is my own fault since I didn't do much reading last week. I can't remember why. That was a whole week ago! I'm sure you'll forgive me. You understand.

Being at the halfway point, I can say that I'm thinking this book is around the same level as its predecessor The Goose Girl. I will also admit that I've been distracted reading it mostly due to a group of small children. Once again, I'm sure many out there will be understanding. Even with the distraction, I'll try and give my honest opinion of the book...next week!

The big question now is, "What do I talk about?"

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I'VE GOT IT!

When I was a kid, I was one of those children who listened to tapes as I went to sleep, and a lot of those tapes I listened to were books on tape. Now, perhaps it was all about the reading and the musical ambiance that some of those tapes had playing in the background, but some of those stories frankly terrified me. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for sending me to bed with frightening images, music, and the multiple dings to turn the page! Just kidding. I love you both. Thanks for fostering my love of reading.

There's my faithful Spike!

I shared a room with my sister at the time, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't bothered at all (she is nearly four whole years older than me after all and thus more brave.) I'm pretty sure she most often would fall asleep before that first ding. So there I was alone in the dark with nothing but my giant, stuffed, blue rabbit named Spike to protect me (I'm not sure what happened to Spike. I have theories he was lost in the great lice epidemic of 1997.). I would squeeze him so tight during the scariest moments. He proved a most loyal companion, and together, we survived!

Here are a few of the books that came to mind in no particular order:

1. The Pig Who Saved the Day by Thomas Crawford

Judging by the scarcity of this book as I searched the internet, I'm left wondering if many other children were scarred for life upon hearing this children's tale resulting in low sales and no one caring about it anymore. I'm being dramatic. I'm sure it's a great book. In essence, what I remember is a happy little farm...with a pig. The most traumatic moment is when a wolf comes probably to eat some of the animals. And I guess the pig saves the day. I don't really know. I don't remember that bit. Pretty much I just remember the wolf, and I'm pretty sure that story is what caused me to wake up in the middle of the night one time and see a wolf shape. He was surely going to eat me until I realized it was just a trick of the light on our coats hanging up. Still, terrifying!


2. Lost in Dinosaur World by Geoffrey T. Williams

When I think of this, I'm kind of reminded of Jurassic Park. This is the story of a young boy who gets lost in a dinosaur theme park. I don't know if I ever made it to the end of the tape. I don't remember how the story ends. He either makes it out alive and people rejoice over that fact, or he gets eaten. Either seems probable. This tape is probably the reason for my dinosaur themed dreams of my childhood (that and the dinosaur sequence of Fantasia, which was also an emotionally scarring thing for me. I totally hid behind furniture to save myself from that scene. My little brother did too until he decided I was silly and dinosaurs were cool...Betrayed by my own brother...). Click on the title of the book to listen to an audio clip on Amazon. I'm pretty positive that's the same recording I grew up with. Only my sister would be able to confirm or deny that fact.



3. Jorinda and Joringel by The Brothers Grimm

Well, do I need to say more than the fact that I was terrified by a brothers Grim fairy tale? For some reason I'm thinking this tape was originally from my grandma. I don't know if that's fact though... Either way...scary! Mostly what I remember about this tape is the lady narrating it saying "jug, jug" when Jorinda is turned into a bird by an evil witch in a wood. Then Joringel is turned to stone. The end. Nah, I'm just kidding. It has a good ending. The curses are broken. The witch is defeated. Oops. Spoilers.

4. Ruby and Sputters by Stephen Cosgrove

If my sister reads this post, she'll probably be saying about now, "Really, Danielle? Ruby and Sputters?" Either that or she won't even remember what I'm talking about. I included this one, not necessarily because it was terrifying like the others, but I do remember it giving me a bad dream about being attacked by a dog. There is no dog attack in this story though. I'm just strange. If I remember correctly (more spoilers are coming), it tells the story of a cat and a dog who get caught out in a snowstorm and die, or are very close to death, but it all ends okay because they are turned into angels. I actually liked that one despite the sadness and dog attack dream. This book was actually one in a series, Earth Angels. We had a bunch of them and listened to many of them on tape. Others include Finnegan Firewing and Hannah Go Brightly. I should mention that this is the same author who did the Serendipity books. Does anyone else remember those? This is another one that has an audio clip.

5. Peach Boy

Okay, so I don't think this one actually terrified me, but we did use to listen to it on tape. If you flipped it over it would just have the music. My siblings and I would listen to it, jump onto one of our waterbeds with all of stuffed animals, and pretend we were on a boat in crazy conditions. The big goal was to keep the animals in the boat. That should tell you how epic Peach Boy was.

The last book on tape that I could think of was not scary at all, but I have to mention them because I still thing they are pretty awesome kids books and those are the Little Miss and Little Mr. books.

What are some of your fondest memories of books when you were a kid? More importantly, was anyone else terrified of the books intended for small children but possibly traumatize them for life? Or was that just me?