Halloween Haunts: Spooky Lit – Why Spooky Matters to Young Readers by Angela Yuriko Smith
Not every little girl loves dolls and pink ponies. I grew up in Wyoming. My dad was an overly avid hunter with an undiagnosed case of PTSD. My mother was second generation Okinawan from a long line of mediums. I didn’t understand the other girls my age and shared few, if any, similar interests. Needless to say, I did not fit in with my peers.
A latch-key kid, my parents locked up the television while they were gone so I wouldn’t rot my brain, something I’m grateful for. Books were my only entertainment and I combed through their well stocked shelves devouring everything with no preference. I would start at the beginning of a shelf and work my way through from left to right.
To add to my natural tendency to be alienated, I was raised Mormon but I went to Catholic school. It’s easy to feel alone in school, but I found myself in the position of being odd to every clique I tried to fit in with. Books became not only something to entertain me, but a shield from the world. With a book in front of my face I could pretend not to hear what the other kids were saying. To interact with me, they first had to breach the literary wall before me.
I had no genre preference until I discovered a large, hardback edition of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s collections on a bottom shelf at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I don’t remember the title other than the name Hitchcock was emblazoned across the cover in large letters. I burrowed into the stories and found that I wasn’t as alone as I thought.
I would love to get my hands on a copy of that book now. The story I remember best involved a young boy whose mother was not so nice. All he had for friends were the shadows he played with on the wall. They eventually came to life and took his mother to a better place… for him anyways.
Of all the books I had devoured, these were the stories I identified with. I understood ghosts. They lived in my basement and chased me up the stairs. I felt a kinship with the boy sitting in the dark alone, playing with shadows. The characters in the tales tended to be the misfits and the maligned. I didn’t understa
nd Nancy Drew, in her pasteurized, perfectly composed world, but I did understand terror and darkness. Horror kept me from feeling alone and gave me something to identify with.
No genre is better than another, but I am grateful for the authors that embrace the shadows and let darkness flow from their pens. Alienated children everywhere can find solace in this spooky lit, coming to the understanding that not everyone lives in a world of rainbows and lollipops. These children are grateful to discover that it’s not that they are blind to bright things, but rather that they can see best in the dark.
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Angela is offering one e-book copy of The Braid, one paperback copy of End of Mae, and one paperback copy of Mr. Bonejangles. Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. You may also enter by e-mailing membership@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.
ANGELA YURIKO SMITH publish
es a monthly online newspaper by day, blogs by night and writes fiction as often as possible in between. Her published works include fiction and nonfiction across multiple genres and she has been included in various anthologies and online publications. In the past she has served as a host for JournalJabber online radio talk show and was once interviewed on National Public Radio for her nonfiction work as a military spouse. Her best known works of horror include End of Mae, Mr. Bonejangles, Monsters Are Everywhere and The Braid.
Blog: http://dandifluff.com/
Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0053YHTO8
Facebook: https:www.facebook.com/angelayurikosmith
Twitter: @AngelaYSmith
The Braid: http://amzn.to/1EeuUfj
Mr. BoneJangles: http://amzn.to/1EeuXHO
End of Mae: http://amzn.to/1PNrHof
Monsters
Are Everywhere: http://amzn.to/1Eev3PZ
Excerpt from The Braid:
“The house loomed over them all, flashing red and blue like a disco rave. Every light inside was on, and Cambria searched the windows, looking for Missy. Through the tall, arched window that faced the stairs, Cambria saw a figure standing in empty air. Confused, she blinked as her gurney bumped backward, the legs folding to lock into place.
The figure slowly rotated around to face her and Cambria took in the twisted expression, eyes rolled up to show empty whites. The mouth moved, stretching into a crooked grin and it reached its hands toward her. Cambria screamed as the doors closed before her, blocking her view, and didn’t stop screaming until she had been sedated twice by a technician whose hands shook worse than his grandmothers.”
