Creeptastic!

Out to Get You: 13 Tales of Weirdness and Woe
​by Josh Allen  ill by Sarah J Coleman

Librarians who work with children know that kids love scary stories: chilling tales reread until the spines break and pages fall out. They constantly ask for more fright-filled short stories. More. More. More.
​Maintaining a selection of hair-raising tales is a never-ending task. Finding middle grade narratives with just the right amount of fright factor, but not veering into gristly gore can be a challenge.
​Josh Allen has this covered with Out to Get You: 13 Tales of Weirdness and Woe. Stories are quick reads: tightly structured tales told briefly in a few pages and concluding with a macabre twist.

Each begins with an everyday encounter. Then the ordinary takes an unexpected turn and young readers wonder what will happen next. Warning: "what happens next" is not a "happily ever after." Example: There's a stain on the school cafeteria floor. When a stray dime lands on the spot, the coin instantly vanishes. What happens when something or someone much larger accidentally lands on the stain?

A teacher has perfected her use of "The Voice" to dominate and control her students. One small girl with mousy brown hair is not intimidated by this overbearing teacher. Instead, a tiny black box appears on the teacher's desk with the note "For all you've done, you deserve this."

Meet the boy who has been waiting all year for the frog dissection in biology. He can't wait to become a mad scientist, don a pair of gloves, and take a scalpel to the dead frog.  When he begins to work on his specimen, something frightening happens.

Pay attention to the female characters. The girls are rarely helpless victims. They are often the perpetrators of some  horrifying stuff. They can deliver their own forms of justice. Lesson: Don't mess with a smart girl!

Sarah J. Coleman's full-page eerie black ink drawings and a glow-in-the-dark cover complete the package. 

Librarians would do well to order several copies of these middle-grade tales of terror. Satisfy young appetites for horror-lite with these creeptastic tales.

Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

​Pub date: September 3, 2019  Publisher: Holiday House  ISBN: 978-0823443666