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Rating: 
Summary: Hooray!
Review: First off, let me state that I am so glad I am in far into college now. Luckily, I was in 4th grade at the right time I bought this from one of those Scholastic order sheets (remember those?), almost ten years ago before special interest groups got on the "ban everything we deem offensive or intelligent to children" bandwagon.Anyways, I recently found this book in a box of old books and, looking through it, it was just as chilling to the spine now as it was around 8 or so years ago when I was a wee lad. Of course, now I'm 19 and the stories seem sort of not so scary, but that's just my picky-eating with dark literature (being more accustomed to Lovecraft and more sophisticated horror and all that). However, the charcoal drawings are what make this book what it is. Stephen Gammell (does he have an online gallery or a book full of illustrations like this? i'm soon checking!) has done an excellent job at creating immensly subtly-disturbing visuals with his illustration skills that seems to amplify the effect of the otherwise cheesy (but still fun) bonfire horror stories. If the stories don't scare the bejesus out of you, the ghostly apparitions and deformed nightmarish landscapes portrayed within the illustrations will definately make you want to buy several halogen lamps and keep them turned on at night with perhaps a garlic necklace around you when you go to sleep. If I recall, the scariest illustration was a full-page charcoal drawing next to a story called "Oh, Suzannah!", almost like something weird going on in a parallel supernatural dimension from some mental patient's hallucinatory nightmare. Either way, this book has redeeming qualities for both folk/urban literature enthusiasts as well as dark-fantasy-art enthusiasts. I heavily recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: The best book of Scary Stories to hit the shelves
Review: I guess I picked up the first 2 books in 3rd grade, around 91 or 92, I dunno. I read these books over and over, every night for awhile, until I moved in with my dad when I was 11. When I moved back with my mother at 14, I was looking through my old stuff, when I see "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" plus its 2 sequals! "Woah!" I say "My 3 favorite childrens books!" I read them all out again in the space of about 2 hours...I read fast. Though I did not get the chill I used to, the stories are still excellent! Stephen Gammells illustations are down right eerie, and thats good, for they bring out the true horror in some tales. As a child, I was scared to death of the picture of the skeleton in "The Haunted House", the scariest thing that ever entered my innocent lil mind LOL. My favorite stories are: "Me-ti-do-tee-Walker", "Wait til Martin Comes", "Harold", and "The Attic", but I love all of them, "Wait til Martin comes" being my personal favorite. Im just the kind of person to think.."What would happen if Martin came?" or "What was in that guys attic?" Oh well, I recommend these books to anyone who wants a good scare, or likes to read creepy folk-lore. To bad I can't find more on some of the folk-tales on the net...Oh well, see you later, and do whatever it takes to get a copy of this book!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: I read these books (all three of them) when I was in third grade. They were so popular at my school, the library had 4 copies of each book, and you still had to put your name on a waiting list. The first time i read them, I was totally freaked out (Steven Gammell's illustrations added imensly to the horror that Schwartz weaved), I remember not sleeping well the first night after I read them. Its now 8 years later (I'm a senior in high school) and I had completly forgotten that they existed. I stumbled upon them when I was searching for Stephen King (I've always been a fan of the horror genre) and ordered all three of them. If you're into fokelore and scary stories, these three books (Scary Stories, More Scary Stories and Scary Stories 3) are all must-haves in your collection. Enjoy, they're WICKED good :)
Rating:
Summary: I am still totally creeped out.
Review: So ten or fifteen years ago, when I was in elementary school, this was definitely the NUMBER ONE MOST FREQUENTLY CHECKED-OUT LIBRARY BOOK, EVER. If you wanted this book in your hot little hand for just two days, you had to stand at the counter and wait for someone to turn it back in, just so you could snatch it up before the librarian got it back onto the shelf. No joke.America's a young country, of course, so our idea of "American folklore" often falls into the sphere of Urban Legend. That doesn't mean this book is any less literary, of course: children will learn what REAL short story pacing is, thanks to Alvin Schwartz's suspenseful collection of concise, tense, and often outright nightmarish stories. But the real thing that will haunt kids a decade or two later will be Stephen Gammell's illustrations. Yipes! I've asked my peers, and not one of us has forgotten those awful, macabre, dripping-flesh-decay illustrations. Ick! Just remembering this book gives me the creeps! But parents, don't worry: this book is a must-have for any well-rounded childhood, so long as you don't mind sharing your bed with your kid for a week or two.
Rating:
Summary: I am still totally creeped out.
Review: So ten or fifteen years ago, when I was in elementary school, this was definitely the NUMBER ONE MOST FREQUENTLY CHECKED-OUT LIBRARY BOOK, EVER. If you wanted this book in your hot little hand for just two days, you had to stand at the counter and wait for someone to turn it back in, just so you could snatch it up before the librarian got it back onto the shelf. No joke. America's a young country, of course, so our idea of "American folklore" often falls into the sphere of Urban Legend. That doesn't mean this book is any less literary, of course: children will learn what REAL short story pacing is, thanks to Alvin Schwartz's suspenseful collection of concise, tense, and often outright nightmarish stories. But the real thing that will haunt kids a decade or two later will be Stephen Gammell's illustrations. Yipes! I've asked my peers, and not one of us has forgotten those awful, macabre, dripping-flesh-decay illustrations. Ick! Just remembering this book gives me the creeps! But parents, don't worry: this book is a must-have for any well-rounded childhood, so long as you don't mind sharing your bed with your kid for a week or two.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen Gammel is a genius!
Review: The first book I read out of the three in the series was "More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," but this is my favorite one by far. No other scary story book(s) alive will EVER compete with this one and its two other sequels. Like almost everyone has said, it's not so much the stories that make this one and it's counterparts scary, it's the damn illustrations! Now let me tell you, Alvin Schwartz does do a very good job of putting stories of old folklore together with a couple of his own stories that he made up himself, but without the help of Stephen Gammel I highly doubt this book (and the other ones) would be so popular. These books are definitely not for the little ones, well maybe they would be if you don't show them the illustrations because there's a VERY good chance they will have nightmares. I swear though if I could draw and paint like Gammel does I would be a happy man, that's for sure! Anyhoo, let me get to the part of where I tell you why this book is my favorite. Not only does it have the best stories in it (in my opinion anyways) but out of the entire series this one has the most unbelieveably nightmarish drawings. "The Thing" and ESPECIALLY "The Haunted House" are VERY good examples! "The Thing"'s illustration is pretty scary but while reading "The Haunted House," I have to put a piece of paper over the illustration to cover it up while reading the story itself, it's that bad trust me. Overall, while I wish very badly that Alvin and Stephen would collaborate again to make more of these books (and I don't think they will, tis very sad) I am glad I have all three of these books, they are well worth the price. However I very rarely read them anymore, it's not like I'm tired of them or anything it's cuz they're too damn scary! I just read all of them yesterday and I predict it's gonna be another 3 years or so before I read them again. That being said, if you don't buy all 3 of these books ..., plain and simple.
Rating:
Summary: Good old spook stories
Review: This is a book of collected folk tales and legends that I bet most people have heard in one variation or another. They are seperated in catagories such as stories you can actaually tell your self; another with ghost stories; miscellaneous scary stories about being baried alive, witches, and so on; and finally a chapter with more humor minded outcomes. There is also brief notes on where these stories come from and on their variations. These are very brief stories, in fact I read the whole book (about 90 something pages) in a night. Some of the stories are really spooky (especially a driver being chased by a man with his brightlights on). The illustrations by Stephen Gammell were really stark, very newspaper-ish. If you are interested in scary, could be true stories, than you will be hard pressed to find a better anthology. By the way, the same star rating goes for the other two books, "More Stories to Tell in the Dark", and "Scary Stories 3: More Stories to Chill Your Bones", both of them by Alvin Schwartz.
Rating:
Summary: Great collection of scary stories for kids
Review: This is the greatest collection of scary stories for kids and pre teens ever. I have collected many scary stories books through out my childhood and this is the only one whos storys have actually stuck with me and the only ones i can remember. Every book in the series , this one , more scary storys to tell in the dark and scary stories 3 are all good. The storys were so creepy i can still remember them to this day and i have recently got the other scary stories books so i can see if they were as good as i remember and they are. I first got this book when i was about 10 years old and lost it over the years then i re ordered a copy and the stories still have same effect and value as i remember. They have great illustrations and even some songs in a couple of the books. I used to stay up at night and read this with my friend and we would read the stories to eachother , i was so excited cause the book was so good and most of the stories gave me chills and i was not one to scare easy. For 6 bucks this is well worth it and the memories and storys will last forever.
Rating: 
Summary: Scary when I was little, not years later.
Review: This is the short story collection for those who were horror writers that became horror writers when they graduated high school in the 1990s, and the question of what they had in their collection during the time when growing up -- it was these books for me that set it all up before I read JAWS and H.P. Lovecraft's short stories. There were these stories that really set the tone for me; and I recommend them for a newer generation of writers and those who really like a good ghost story to scare the crap out of them.
This book is a lot of fun and I wish I still had my copies of them but when I moved to Iowa they were left behind. I remember the book as a whole but the collection which calls to mind is the hearse song; I found myself whistling that thing from time to time, so if you hear the kids on here reviewing this book listen to them because they know what they are talking about when doing a review of this book. Take it from a horror writer as well, this book is well worth what ever you spend on it. I would spend at least $20 on the whole set because they are a collectors item. I remember when I was in school and these books have a hard time staying in the shelves; it was these books that basically will play into my life at age 20, then when I think about them now I still smile about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Scary Storys to tell in the dark
Review: YOU HAVE TO SEE HOW SCARY LOOKING THE PICTURES ARE IN ALL OF THE BOOKS!!!! THAT COULD DEFINETELY GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES FOR A WHILE.EVEN IN SOME STORIES. THERE WAS NOT A PICTURE OF THE WENDINGO, BUT THE BACK OF THE BOOK SAID IT WAS A FEMALE SPIRIT, AND/OR A CANNIBAL GIANT THAT KILLS FOR HUMAN FLESH AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS DESCRIBED INDIANS WANTING TO EAT FLESH AS A "WENDIGO PSYCHOSIS". {I'm sure that's how you spell that word}.
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