Halloween habits: the rise of horror in children's books

I have known terror.

I was 11 when it first filtered into my room in the dead of night. Terror was a violent intruder, a man identified to police as Bruno Frye, and yet when the attack occurred he was confirmed to be at his own home, hundreds of kilometres away. No! It wasn’t possible!


I knew terror then as I lay alone in my bed, hiding under blankets in a house that clicked and breathed around me, curled up, listening, held tight in the suffocating arms of fear.
But the next night I came back for more – and so did Bruno Frye.
I sat wide-eyed in a puddle of light, a silent witness, only breathing again when he was finally stabbed and then fled, bleeding. The police found his body. Bruno Frye was dead. All was well.
But the next night he was back again...

I knew terror intimately then. The hours crawled by as my torch grew weaker, as the darkness grew stronger. I knew terror with the turn of each page.

Terror was a book. It was Whispers, by Dean Koontz.

Whispers was an adult novel, discarded by my mother for being “too scary” and retrieved by me for the very same reason. I knew it wasn’t meant for children, but that’s the great thing about books: they don’t come with age restrictions!

At that age I was always at the library anyway, secretly reading what I shouldn’t: racy books, violent books, even a book about sex for boys. However, Whispers switched me on to terror, and it was thrillers I learned to love best of all.

I moved onto other Koontz books – Phantoms, Night Chills, Shattered – swopping them with friends, borrowing them from the library, and then I stumbled upon The Amityville Horror, by Jay Anson. I was way to young to watch the film – those darned age restrictions again! – yet no one fretted that I was reading the book on which the film was based, because reading couldn’t hurt anyone… right?

Yet books are as big and terrifying as your imagination. You set the scene, you build the bad guys, and I built them big: The Amityville Horror left me a jittery wreck, high on adrenalin for weeks. It was exhilarating.

From there it was a natural progression to the master, Stephen King, but I wasn’t alone. How could I ever be alone again in King’s world where clowns lived in drains, preying on children, or where dead pets were buried then came back to life – though perhaps “life” is too strong a word?
And I recommend it. I recommend it all.
Being terrified is exactly the point. My scary reading habit meant I had crazy dreams I couldn’t tell anyone about, I looked suspiciously at strangers, avoided dark places, and stared out of the window during school wondering what I’d do if Bruno Frye walked in – leave him to my maths teacher, probably.

But oh, it was a magnificent terror. I was hooked on it, doped to the eyeballs on the thrill of the thriller.

People need to be scared sometimes: it’s a dark craving right at core level. Exploring fear is about testing our own boundaries, seeing how far we dare to go into the unknown.
That’s why little kids jump off walls, tease vicious dogs, and adore spooky campfire stories. That’s why they scream for Halloween.

That’s why teenagers love rollercoasters, horror movies, “unsuitable” friends, and rebels. That’s why they drive too fast, pick fights, take risks, and scare their parents to death.
That’s why there’s a flood of terrific young adult thrillers on the market at the moment, like Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth series, or The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black, or Joseph Delaney’s Spook’s Apprentice books.

Fright makes people feel alive – and sometimes you just want to pulse with it.
Yes, I have known terror… and I love it.

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