Triple-Dare to Be Scared - Thirteen Further Freaky Tales by Robert D. San Souci

For scary story addicts who just can't get enough of those spine-tingling, hair-raising things that go bump in the night, folklorist Robert San Souci has three volumes of truly chilling thrillers for kids who have graduated from Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark series and want to take their suspense reading to the next level.

The latest in this top-rated threesome, Triple-Dare to Be Scared: Thirteen Further Freaky Tales (Dare to Be Scared) has thirteen horror stories with not a real happy ending among them. Not for sissies, this collection begins with "Second Childhood," in an encounter beneath a mausoleum on a dark and stormy evening as a lonely ghost child picks as his all-unwilling playmate a kid taking shelter from the thunderstorm and gives him no choice--except the red or black pieces--in a checker game that looks to go on for eternity.

There's a common traditional thread to many of these stories involving an ethnically diverse group of middle-school-aged boys and girls who venture into the dark side when they ignore a critical warning. In "They Bite, Too," a boy can't resist bringing home a carved stone figure he finds in Hawaii, despite the warning that nothing must ever be removed from the islands. In "Plat-Eye" a sister and brother, bored with their visit to their old-timey granny in the sea islands of Georgia, disobey her warnings to stay out of the dark woods beyond the creek and meet up with the "plat-eye" a shape-changing restless soul who means them no good.

San Souci's gift is the ability to weave authentic strands of deep-rooted American folklore into tales of modern kids encountering homegrown supernatural forces unlike those the Euro Harry Potter faces. For a older readership than Schwartz's often humorous Scary Stories set, this series, which also includes the earlier Dare to be Scared: Thirteen Stories to Chill and Thrill and Double-Dare to Be Scared: Another Thirteen Chilling Tales (Dare to be Scared), is just creepy enough to give middle readers a mild case of the spooks. David Ouimet's understated black and white illustrations add to the mood of these all-American tales which make it fun to be scared, in the scary season before Halloween or just any dark and stormy night.