Tag: middlegrade

Historical Spooky MG

Happy October, readers and writers!

This month, some of us here at Spooky MG have been talking about historical–or historical-ish–creepy middle grade books: why we write them, what we love about them, which ones are recent favorites.

Read on to find out what we had to say — and if you haven’t already, be sure to check out our *giveaway* of all of these marvelous historical MGs over on Twitter!

(To enter: Retweet the giveaway post and follow @spookymgbooks. Bonus entries for tagging friends! Open from 10/4 to 10/9 at midnight EST. Winner announced 10/10/20. US only.)

Janet Fox – author of THE CHARMED CHILDREN OF ROOKSKILL CASTLE and THE ARTIFACT HUNTERS

Why do you like to write historical spooky books?
I love historical books, and adding that spooky element raises the stakes to a whole new level. But, in fact, The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle, my first spooky historical, became a historical work first and a spooky book second. It was an organic process of finding that I had an antagonist who was so evil that she took the story to a different level. In The Artifact Hunters, my second, because it’s a sequel I used many of the same elements (setting, time period, some characters) and so the spookiness was baked in. But I do love twisting historical elements (castles) with creepy ones (ghosts).


Tell us a bit about your book. What drew you to the period in which your book is set?
The Artifact Hunters (as well as Charmed Children) is set during World War Two. There are a number of things that drew me to that time period. First, I could separate the children from their parents during the London Blitz – because children were, truly, sent away during the bombing to keep them safe. Second, there have long been rumors that Hitler was obsessed by the occult, and wanted to use those practices to further his aims, and how creepy is that? And third, the threats to my characters could come both from the evil antagonist and the war itself.

What other historical spooky mg book would you recommend?
I recommend The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier. It’s one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. Set in Victorian times it reads like a Poe story, with orphaned children, a terrible curse, and a terrifying monster. I loved every spine-tingling atmospheric moment.

Jacqueline West — author of THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE and LONG LOST (coming 5.11.21)

Why do you like to write historical spooky books? 
My books often begin with a setting. Locations—especially rambling, odd, old buildings—are irresistible to my writing brain. I want to wander around inside of them all, and explore every dusty nook and corner, and discover all the secrets of their pasts and presents. And when I write about them, I get to.

Tell us a bit about your book. What drew you to the period in which your book is set?
My first series, The Books of Elsewhere, was inspired by a strange old house in my hometown. While most of the story is set in the present day, the past is central to the book: The looming stone house that Olive Dunwoody moves into is filled with the history (and secrets) of the house’s former owners. Getting to unfold that history was one of the most exciting parts of writing the books. 

And my next middle-grade book, Long Lost (coming in May 2021!), takes place in an old New England town with a public library that used to be the home of a wealthy and mysterious local family. There’s a story-within-a-story in this one, so I got to explore the house and town as I imagine them today and as they were a century ago. The book itself is about how the past tangles with the present, and about how, even when people vanish, their stories can live on and on and on.  

What other historical spooky mg book would you recommend? 
Hoodoo, by Ronald L. Smith. It’s set in rural Alabama in the 1930s, and it’s the story of a twelve-year-old boy from a family of folk magicians who has to help his dead father’s spirit find peace while fending off a mysterious visitor called The Stranger. The time and place are so richly captured, and the whole thing is unique and deep and creepy and wonderful.  

Josh Roberts – author of THE WITCHES OF WILLOW COVE

Why do you like to write historical spooky books?
I believe history is all around us, and it affects our lives in a million invisible ways every single day. I wanted to explore this idea in my debut novel, The Witches of Willow Willow Cove, which is a contemporary story that’s centered around a historical mystery tied to the Salem Witch Trials. I think the more we understand what has come before us–and why it happened–the better we can understand the context of our own lives. Plus, the mysteries of the past are just incredibly fun to write about!


What drew you to the period in which your book is set?
I was born and raised in New England just a few towns over from Salem, Massachusetts. Growing up, the Witch Trials were always a big part of our local lore. I remember learning about that period as a kid growing up in the 1980s, and then discovering that the witch scare extended far beyond Salem and even into my own home town. When I set out to write The Witches of Willow Cove, I drew upon my memories of a contemporary childhood and what it was like to discover my town’s ties to this very dark period of local history. From there it was an easy step to imagine modern day kids like my main character, a seventh grader named Abby Shepherd, discovering even deeper ties to the Witch Trials and how that might affect her life in exciting and unexpected ways. 


What other historical spooky mg book would you recommend? 
My go-to recommendation is The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange. It’s a beautiful story of friendship, trauma, and recovery set against a backdrop of ghostly woods and spooky old houses in WWI-era England.

Angie Smibert – author of THE GHOSTS OF ORDINARY OBJECTS series

Why do you like to write historical spooky books?

I love historical books—with a twist. The history is certainly fascinating itself, but I’m really a spec fiction writer, so I like a little something else going on, such as a good ghost story or a bit of magic or magical realism. The spooky element raises the stakes and just generally makes the story more interesting.

What drew you to the period in which your book is set?

The setting drew me in first. The Truce—and the whole Ghosts of Ordinary Objects series—happens in a small coal mining community in Southwest Virginia. The place is loosely based on McCoy, Virginia, where my mother and her family (and several generations before her) grew up.  I set the story in 1942 because this was the peak of the coal mining in our area—and yet it was also a time of great change. The US was fully involved in World War II by that time. Men were leaving the mines to fight in the war. Rationing had started. Women were working in factories. People were dying. This was the perfect time period for a protagonist who wants everything to stay like it had been. (Be cruel to your protagonists!) And my protagonist, twelve-year-old Bone Phillips, is going through a great change, too. She discovered her Gift, the ability to see the ghosts inside ordinary objects, and she was not happy about it!

This is a place that doesn’t really exist anymore. After the war, the mines began to shut down, really changing everything. Now you can drive through the area and never realize there were once coal mines there.

What other historical spooky mg book would you recommend?

I loved The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by MT Anderson and Eugene Yelchin, so I decided to look up some other things Yelchin had written. Delightfully spooky and a little offbeat, The Haunting of Falcon House is set in late 19th Century Saint Petersburg, Russia. Young Prince Lev, a budding artist, must leave his mother to take up his noble duties at Falcon House. There he discovers a dreadful family secret in this haunted mansion that makes him question his role and the aristocracy. The book includes many of the Prince’s drawings.

To win a copy of each of these books — THE ARTIFACT HUNTERS, THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOL 1: THE SHADOWS, THE WITCHES OF WILLOW COVE and THE TRUCE, *PLUS* our recommended titles, THE NIGHT GARDENER, HOODOO, THE SECRET OF NIGHTINGALE WOOD, and THE HAUNTING OF FALCON HOUSE — make sure to find us on Twitter: @spookymgbooks.

Happy reading!

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The Stories that Scared US

Obviously, all of us at Spooky MG love creepy stories. And we love the ones written for young readers with a special fierceness.

But I wanted to know about the books that genuinely terrify us—or that terrified us when we were young and impressionable, and that may have given us writing (or nightmare) material for years to come.

I’ll knew what my own answer would be:

Scary Stories Trilogy

Like pretty much everyone else in my Elder Millennial/Oregon Trail generation, my third grade mind was blown by Alvin Schwartz’s SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK. I was terrified by those collections, and I adored them—probably for the same reasons. My friends and I would read them aloud at sleepovers, poring over Stephen Gammell’s illustrations, scaring ourselves catatonic. On my own, I would turn back to certain stories or images again and again, seeing if they were as frightening as I remembered. They always were.

If I had to pick a few stories that really dug their hooks into me, I might say “The Bride” (Gah, “The Bride”!!), “The Wendigo” (Its frozen, empty eeriness hit this upper Midwesterner hard), or “Me Tie Doughty Walker,” where the protagonist’s dog begins speaking in strange nonsense words, and is answered by a voice that comes from somewhere in the darkness outside his little cottage… The thought of that one still makes me shudder.

I know some grownups who say they were scarred by these books, and who wish they hadn’t read them when they were small. I suppose I was scarred by them too. But I’m weirdly grateful for it. Without them, I’m not sure what dark and terrible things would be missing from my imagination. And now I get to play with those dark and terrible things when I sit down to write creepy stories of my own.

So, what books for young readers scared—or scarred—my fellow Spookies?

 

Ghostly AnimalsSarah Cannon (ODDITY, TWIST)

Before SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK or GOOSEBUMPS, there was an author named Daniel Cohen who used to put out scary story collections, and GHOSTLY ANIMALS in particular scared the pants off me. There was a ghost that was a skunk with a human face, which was so completely out of left field that it blindsided me…it hadn’t even occurred to me to be scared of such a thing before! Also, Phillis Reynolds Naylor’s Witch series (WITCH WATER, WITCH’S SISTER, etc.) scared me half to death, mostly because the villain was a scary old lady neighbor. The adults could *see* her, they just thought the kids were being fanciful. But they weren’t, and the scary incidents that illustrated this were extremely real to me.

 

LionWitchWardrobe CoverSamantha M. Clark (THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST)

The book that terrified me most as a kid was actually THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. I was terrified that the Witch was going to turn me to stone and horrified about all the animals that had been turned to stone. The idea still haunts me to this day. I’ve never been able to look at realistic statues without wondering if a person is trapped inside…

 

 

The_BFG_(Dahl_novel_-_cover_art)Tania del Rio (WARREN THE 13TH series)

So a book that scared me as a kid was The BFG by Roald Dahl, which is funny because it’s not even a scary book, at least not compared to, say, THE WITCHES. And even though BFG literally stands for big FRIENDLY giant, I still used to lay awake at night terrified that an enormous eye would peer into my bedroom window or that a massive hand would reach through and whisk me away. Even the idea of a giant man blowing pleasant dreams through a long horn creeped me out. It didn’t help that I had tall poplar trees in my backyard and at night, their silhouettes looked like giants wearing long cloaks! 😬

 

Janet Fox (THE ARTIFACT HUNTERS, THE CHARMED CHILDREN OF ROOKSKILL CASTLE)

I hate to say it, but almost nothing I read as a kid scared me. Even the grownup books. Even DRACULA. But put me in front of a mildly scary movie – even today – and I will have nightmares for weeks, months, years. I don’t know if that helps, but it’s the truth. And maybe why I can write scary books today.

 

Lorien Lawrence (THE STITCHERS)

In a Dark, Dark Room

Lorien Lawrence (THE STITCHERS)

The first scary story that comes to mind is “The Green Ribbon” by Alvin Schwartz from his IN A DARK, DARK ROOM collection. I remember a librarian reading this to my class as kindergarteners – which seems bizarre now because it’s SUCH a scary story, even by today’s standards! We were all sitting on the carpet, huddled together, just listening. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards. It definitely gave me nightmares, but it also left me wanting more. I’m sure that read-aloud jump started my love of all things spooky!

 

Cynthia Reeg (FROM THE GRAVE, INTO THE SHADOWLANDS)

The Children of Green Knowe

Cynthia Reeg (FROM THE GRAVE, INTO THE SHADOWLANDS)

I have to admit that I was a Nancy Drew addict—these creepy, spooky, mysterious books always appealed to me. Plus, I enjoyed trying to solve the puzzle, and they were easily accessible at the small local libraries where I lived when I was an MG reader. But I also remember how creepy and chilling the GREEN KNOWE books by Lucy M. Boston were. Loved them! And often I would ready spooky Clyde Robert Bulla books like THE GHOST OF WINDY HILL. First and foremost in monstrous books for me were fairy tales and folklore stories, which were again easily accessible and often taught at school.

 

Kim Ventrella (THE SECRET LIFE OF SAM, THE SKELETON TREE, etc.)

As a kid, I always found myself yearning for stories that both transported me and reflected my experiences, and those experiences weren’t always roses and rainbows. Books that tackled tough topics or delved into the scary or macabre, rather than frightening me, made me feel accepted and understood. They validated my experience and gave me courage. I especially loved SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, mostly thanks to the disturbing, ethereal imagery. Unlike other scary books for kids, that collection didn’t sugar-coat things. I remember being in fifth grade and getting super upset when I read a book (that shall remain unnamed :P) where the ‘monster’ turned out to be some big misunderstanding, basically a Scooby Doo ending. I wanted the monsters to be real, so that I could see kids overcoming true evil. I longed for that catharsis. The funny thing is that now, as an adult, my books with ’spooky’ themes are all about finding light, whimsy and wonder in the midst of darkness. The spooky elements are there partly to lessen the blow of the real-life tough topics I address, like loss and grief. But I think the two needs are connected, i.e. the need I had as a young reader to see kids overcoming true evil, and the recognition that, as an adult, real life is much more terrifying than any kind of fantasy monster.

 

Jacqueline West is the author of THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, THE COLLECTORS, and DIGGING UP DANGER, as well as the YA horror novel LAST THINGS. Visit her at http://www.jacquelinewest.com, or find her at jacqueline.west.writes (Instagram) or @JacquelineMWest (Twitter).

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