Many love Halloween because of the costumes and candy.
Others go gaga for the ghost stories, and if you know some kids who fall into that category, why not introduce them to one of the originals? “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly.
Anthony Ascione, from in Traverse City, has some great choices for children this Halloween that teach them about the woman who started the science fiction genre.
‘She Made a Monster,’ ‘Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein,’ and ‘Frankenstein a Monstrous Parody’
“So something kind of interesting this year is the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, which is a foundational piece of horror,” Ascione says. “It is sort of the story that launched the entire genre of science fiction. Mary Shelley wrote it as part of a story telling contest she entered with her boyfriend and her friends at the time, so we have some really cool Frankenstein books in right now. These two, ‘She Made A Monster’ and ‘Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein’ are both stories about Mary Shelley and about her life and about her process of writing the story. They’ve both got some wonderful illustrations in them.”
Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’
Or if you like scary movies, Ascione has the perfect suggestion for a dark and stormy night.
“A lot of people read ‘The Lottery’ when they were in high school, which is a Shirley Jackson short story that’s considered one of the foundational pieces of American Literature,” Ascione says. “This is astonishingly good, anytime someone comes in here looking for a horror novel, I say have you read this? If they say no, I push it into their hands. It’s the ultimate haunted house book in my mind. The ultimate haunted house story. These four people go to a house as part of a paranormal research team. It’s a doctor and his two assistants who have been chosen basically through luck in the newspaper. He puts an ad in, (saying) if you’ve ever experienced any weird phenomenon, contact me. And the fourth guy is the heir to the family that owns the house. As soon as they get there, they can tell the angles of the house are wrong, the feeling of the house is wrong, and even though it should be really nice and lovely, the decorations are somehow oppressive and stale. Things get terrifying from there. I won’t say any more. it’s a stunning atmospheric horror piece.”
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