The Vine: April 17, 2009
Hi Sars,
I have a question for you and your readers about a vaguely remembered book from my childhood that I’ve been wondering about off and on for years.It was a Young Adult book; I think the title might have been something along the lines of “Why Me?”, but that’s not showing up in Google searches.
It was about a normal girl whose kidneys suddenly failed.She had to go through the whole dialysis thing, strictly regulating liquids, etc.I remember her quitting ballet lessons because the dialysis tube showed through her leotard.
Of course, she was looking for a kidney transplant, but the catch is she was adopted.So she had to hunt down her birth mother.I remember her being successful in finding her, but then I either lost the book or had to return it to the library or something, and I never found out what happened. I wonder if this rings a bell with anyone else?Thank you!
Katie
*****
Oh wise Sars and fellow grape tomatoes —
PLEASE help me find the title of a collection of scary stories I read as a kid.But let me say first that it definitely wasn’t Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark or anything else by Alvin Schwartz; I’ve got that whole collection at home, and they started my lifelong love of folktales and urban legends.
The book I’m looking for was the secondary choice (after Schwartz) whenever it came time to pick a book for the week in 4th grade; my classmates and I fought like cats and dogs over it.Every time I try to look it up online, I come up empty-handed, and I need to find it, because this collection had two stories that have stayed with me for the past twenty years.Here’s what I remember:
It was a paperback collection of scary stories, not a novel, and I remember two of the stories in particular.In one, someone is driving across the Badlands and (of course) has to stop at a creepy house.I remember it was the Badlands specifically, because that was the first time I encountered that term.I don’t remember much, but I think a father and daughter lived at the creepy house.The daughter had a ribbon tied around her neck, and (of course) when the ribbon was eventually untied, the head fell off.I think the little girl had been accidentally run over in the driveway years before, by her dad, and her head had been severed.I can’t remember if the visitor gets away or not.
The other story I remember involved a guy and his two friends going up to a cabin and hearing on the radio that an escaped lunatic was (of course) loose in the area.When the other two guys (of course) go out to get firewood, the remaining guy (of course) starts hearing things and barricades himself inside the cabin.He hears a scratching at the door but refuses to look out the window.He waits until morning, and then hears the police telling him to come out of the cabin.When he finally gets out, the door is all scratched up and his friends are lying on the porch, their heads bashed in by the escaped lunatic and their fingers bloody from scratching at the door.
What scared me about these stories back in the day, and the reason they’ve stayed with me, was the main characters’ belated realization of how close the danger was the whole time — the lunatic is on the porch killing the friends, the nice little girl’s head is going to fall off and she wants to warn the visitor about her dad.I’d love to read them again and see if they still scare me, but Google searches and attempts at stump-the-bookseller sites have been fruitless.
I know it’s not much to go by, but I’m hoping the Badlands reference will have stuck in someone else’s mind as much as it did in mine.This book was making the rounds way back in 1989-90, so it might not even be in print anymore.But if anyone has a lead, I’d be much obliged!
Thanks —
It was the drawings in the Alvin Schwartz books that really gave me nightmares
*****
Hi Sars,
I hope you and/or your readers can help me with a book I read as a young teen in the ’90s. I cannot for the life of me remember the name. It was about a young girl/teen who is sent off to boarding school in a huge creepy old mansion that has very few other students.
All the students at the school were handpicked for their psychic abilities (unbeknownst to them) and are used by the headmistress to channel the spirits of certain famous artists/authors. The students then recreate the artwork/poetry etc. of these famous, deceased people to the (financial?) benefit of the headmistress.
Sound familiar?
Many thanks,
Kate
Tags: Ask The Readers bookfest popcult
The book about the girl who needs the kidney transplant is indeed called Why Me?. It’s by Deborah Kent. Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/cm6w23
Looks like it might be out of print but there are sellers for it.
I started out looking for Lurlene McDaniel books because it sounded like something she’d write. Turns out she wrote a similar book called Saving Jessica.
Kate: I’m almost positive the book you’re talking about is Down a Dark Hall, by Lois Duncan. I remember reading it several times.
Kate, the book you’re thinking of is Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan. I couldn’t remember the title, but this is the first book that pops up when you do an Amazon search for Lois Duncan!
Argh! I almost remember that last one…she was signing her paintings “TC” and she was Thomas Cole, right?!?
I hope someone comes up with this…
Kate: It’s Down A Dark Hall, absolutely. I loved that one! One girl was painting, one girl was channeling Emily Bronte, and the protagonist would wake up every morning with her fingers sore from having played Chopin’s new compositions all night. Good times :)
I read that scary book too, I think. I definitely recognize the story about the girl with the severed head. But for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is.
The scary stories book was probably one of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents ones. Along with the The Three Investigators books, there were also several anthologies.
Oh man, I remember Why Me? . . . Gogo sixth grade classroom libraries.
I think the scary book you are looking for is Tales for the Midnight Hour by J.B. Stamper. I loved that book as a kid – especially the story where a woman is putting a puzzle together in her apartment and she begins to realize that the picture is of her apartment and she’s getting more and more freaked out as she puts it together. The last pieces are of the window and there is a gruesome face in it, she turns to look at her own window and…
http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Midnight-Hour-Stories-Horror/dp/0590453432
For the scary story, a search turned up In a Dark, Dark Room and other Scary Stories — with the ribbon one called “The Green Ribbon.” It is by Alvin Schwartz though, so maybe not the right one?
Unfortunately I can’t be of any help, but I do want to agree about the pictures in those Alvin Schwartz scary story books. They used to really freak me out (and probably still would if I saw one).
I definitely remember the story about the little girl with the ribbon around her neck, but I want to say that was one of those ghost stories that got retold in various publications? That, or I totally read that book, too.
Every time I hear a variation on the cabin story, it .seriously. gives me the chills. It’s 3 o’clock in the damn afternoon and I’m sitting at my desk at work, terrified of violent lunatics RIGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE…cubicle?
Kate: I agree that it’s definitely Down a Dark Hall. I read all of Lois Duncan’s books over and over as a kid (I went through a really long macabre phase); that’s one of her creepier ones.
There are variations of the girl with the severed head; in the one I remember, her boyfriend asks about it on their first date and every date after, and they finally get married and she tells him she can untie the ribbon on their wedding night, and of course her head falls off. Same with the bloody fingers from scratching at the door – in some versions it’s a college dorm situation and a roommate is being murdered while the other roommate is oblivious. So that might be why they’re hard to pin down.
I can’t remember all the stories in the book, and Amazon isn’t helping much with details, but could the Badlands/cabins story be in the book “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales”? http://tinyurl.com/d87hwx That book scared the bejesus out of me as a kid.
Ah.. Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike… such creepy books in my pre-teen years. I couldn’t wait until I was a high schooler and then I’d be the one torturing my friends and having house parties where beer gets poisoned…
I was really hoping my fledgling librarian wings would get me through the scary-stories question. I know I read those too. I want to say the one with the severed head was “The Red Satin Ribbon,” or something similar, but my anthology-searching skills are clearly not up to this task.
It also occurs to me that these may be common enough stories to be considered folklore, but that isn’t helping me much.
Clouding the issue is I think I remember telling the ribbon story amongst the friends.
Drat.
Amending my previous comment to add that someone at the book sleuth forum at AbeBooks pointed me to this post about a previous inquiry about the ribbon story.
“Ah, that story is an old classic, which I believe has appeared in different forms over the years. The version I have is quite short–just two pages–and is called “The Velvet Ribbon” by Ann McGovern. It appeared in her book Ghostly Fun in 1970, and was also printed in the Scholastic paperback The Haunted House and Other Spooky Poems and Tales, edited by Gladys Schwarcz and Vic Crume.”
hmmm…the decapitated girl story made me think of The Green Ribbon, but I’m pretty sure that’s in In a Dark, Dark Room and that’s a Schwartz book…
Bitch Magazine actually had a story about the feminist aspects of Down a Dark Hall and other Lois Duncan books. I don’t remember exactly which issue, but it was within the last year….
The scary stories might be one of the three volumes of The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard. I know 1) that I’ve read the book you’re talking about; 2) that I’ve read all three of TSSYEH; and that 3) TSSYEH scared the shit out of me when I was around 7 (one character was also named Sarah, and I was so freaked out I had to put the book down and I didn’t pick it up again for 10 years, so I didn’t know what happened to Sarah-in-the-book for a DECADE). On the other hand, I’m not completely sure that this is the right one. But worth a look, definitely.
Sort of off-topic, but I turned the girl with a ribbon around her neck into a Halloween costume once. Very few people got it or knew the story – so mainly just saying it’s cool to find a bunch of people who do know it. I do think it’s been in many books with many variations. Good luck finding the one that you remember.
Another reader suggested Tales for the Midnight Hour – I think that is right. I owned that book as a child and both the stories you mention sound veeerrry familiar. I also remember in one of the stories two girls are having a sleepover and one of them gets decapitated by an intruder – her friend reaches out in the dark and feels the bloody stump of her neck above the fur collar of her robe. And maybe in another one, someone on a jungle expedition gets carried off by a huge bird? But maybe that was another story compilation. I ate those kind of books UP as a kid.
Well thank you to the person who asked about Down a Dark Hall. I had been trying to think of a book that I read when I was little and could not remember the name or author. As soon as I saw Lois Duncan’s name a giant light bulb went off above my head and I actually said “Ah ha!” The book I was trying to think of was “The Gift of Magic” which I loved growing up and read dozens of times. I just googled Lois Duncan and am surprised and happy to know that she is still around.
It’s definitely the “Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard” series… those books scared the crap out of me as a kid, too! I remember the one with the ribbon around the neck – yeesh!!
http://www.amazon.com/Scariest-Stories-Youve-Ever-Heard/dp/0874064198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240003928&sr=1-1
First one is definitely “Why Me?”. I have it at my parents’ house.
The pictures in the Alvin Schwartz books have scarred me for life. Seriously, I’m terrified remembering the one of the dead, decaying woman face…. ok, I have to stop now. Ew ew ew.
Re. In a Dark, Dark Room…did anyone else have an audiotape that went along with this book? I have such a clear memory of the narrator saying at the end of The Green Ribbon, “…and Jenny’s head fell OFF!” Thanks for the reminder!
D: That is a fully awesome Halloween costume idea. May steal.
Meg, I remember the part about the audio. I don’t remember very much about the book, but I had the album. That narrator was creepy.
Deborah Kent wrote a series of books titled “Why Me?”. I have one about a diabetic boy. She’s actually still writing. We both wrote chapters in a (non-fiction) book that examines disabled characters on kids’ fiction.
@ Meg: I remember that tape. I listened to it in school in second grade around Halloween-time. That was a very, very bad idea.
And the pictures in those Alvin Schwartz books creeped me out so much I was scared to be in the same room with them
I love the Book Questions — it makes Library School pay off!
I think the “ribbon story” is common enough to be considered folklore — I’m pretty sure I read it in one of San Souci’s collections, and he is pretty strictly a folklore guy. It might have been Short and Shivery or one of it’s sequels. Unfortunately, both he and and the Alvin Schwartz books were cleaned out by 3rd graders today, so I can’t go to the shelves and check.
The book Kate is looking for is almost certainly Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan. An interesting fact is that Lois Duncan’s daughter was murdered, and as a result, she quit writing the scary teen fiction that she was known for. Her most recent book is the adaptation of Hotel for Dogs. She did write a non-fiction book about her daughter’s case, Who Killed My Daughter. However, all of her suspense novels are still in print.
Not providing an artful answer to these book questions but saying a big THANKYOU to the wonderful vine readers and the original poster re: Lois Duncan books. I too had been looking for a couple of my favourite pre-teen reading fare and for the life of me couldn’t remember the titles or author. It’s been an annoying few months. Just seeing “Down a Dark Hall” set the lightbulb in my brain off…now I’ve found the other “Stranger with my Face”. Thanks all-you are brilliant!!
I just want to agree about the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” series by Alvin Schwartz. I still own these books and to this day those illustrations are STILL some of the creepiest stuff I have ever seen. Of course, all of those nights as a kid reading the stories under my blanket with a flashlight, despite the stringy and gooey ickiness of the Schwartz drawings probably didn’t help matters. I’m convinced every adult in the children’s entertainment industry in the 80’s was doing some kind of hallucinogenic drug, and thank heavens for that, heh.
@D: I did that too. Then, when it was time to take the costume off, I was TOTALLY SCARED to untie the green ribbon. The version of that story I had as a kid terrified the pants off me, to the point where I had to very carefully flip past it and not look at any of the (scary or non-) pictures when I was reading the book.
In the book I had, there was also a story about a boy who inherits(?) a stuffed dog (like, a dog that had been stuffed after it died, not a toy) from a relative(?), and its eyes glow red and it comes alive and eats people. Or something like that. Scary, anyway.
Nothing helpful to contribute, but I remember reading a variant of the girl-with-ribbon ghost story by Gaston Leroux – early 20th century French author (best-known for the Phantom of the Opera). In that version, she’d been guillotined in the Revolution.
Another possibility for the scary, urban legend-type stories in the Southern Fried series of books.
http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Fried-Other-Gruesome-Tales/dp/0380706555
@ Meg: Oh my GOD. I forgot about that tape, and I heard it in school, too. Loved it, but it scared the hell out of me.
And I feel that way about the illustrations in Alvin Schwartz’s books, too…they’re brilliant and I look at them again and again, but they’re definitely terrifying.
I agree with everyone who said that the one about the ribbon can’t really be used to pinpoint a specific compilation because it’s almost as significant a piece of folklore as The Hitchhiker.
Kate– your story sounds as if it shares some elements with Anna to the Infinite Power? Let me know– I saw the movie when I was a kid and it made a huge impression on me.
Stephen Gammell did the drawings for the Alvin Schwartz books.
@ Karen: The drawing of the woman’s face was the ALL-TIME scariest! It was the illustration for “The Haunted House” where a preacher stays in the house and confronts the ghost of the murdered woman, who tells him where to find her bones. He puts her pinky bone in the collection plate the next Sunday, and it sticks to her murderer’s fingers when he touches it. Blrrrrrrrrgh!
I used to have to flip past that page, I couldn’t even look at it. Sometimes couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with the book.
I was the one who wrote in looking for those two stories, and you guys have given me some really good leads, thanks much! Keep them coming though, just in case I can’t find it :)
And to think the most frightening thing I read was “Gus Was a Friendly Ghost.” Honestly…I never realized all that stuff was out there. Great Vine!
I’m the Sarah from earlier who is sure she has read the two scary stories, and I can state with a reasonable amount of certainty that it’s not the Southern Fried series or the Gaston Leroux thing because I haven’t read either of those. It’s also not In a Dark, Dark Room, because that was geared toward younger kids, and the type on the pages of these two stories was closer together (I have a weirdly visual memory). It could be one of the Tales for the Midnight Hour books (I think there are four?) but I went to Amazon and they don’t seem quite right (though I have read them). I’m going to reiterate, now closer to 80% sure, that it was Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard. They were sort of weirdly literary in their way, and the Badlands thing is really starting to ring a bell. The other possibility is that the “badlands” thing is from a different story in the collection, because I think I remember the “badlands” thing in a teenage-car-death-ghost-driver context. But I could be muddling it up myself.
Anyway. Yes. Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard, one of the three volumes.
Tales for the Midnight Hour scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid. Even if it’s not the book that your correspondents are looking for, it’s worth looking into for stories that will have you sleeping with a nightlight for years… There is one story that takes place in the Badlands, but this story involves a guy whose companions are killed by some sort of vengeful spirit that breathes into their mouths. The protagonist escapes and is picked up by a stagecoach, at which point the twist ending happens. The Gooney Birds, the Fur Collar, the stuffed boxer dog, the Tunnel of Love story – I still remember most of them 30+ years later. I actually burned the book so that my little brother wouldn’t accidentally come across it and scare himself as badly as I had…
jeccat – the description reminded me of Anna to the Infinite Power too, although it is clearly not the same. I read the book but never knew there was a movie; thanks!
Hi Sarah, Tales of the Midnight Hour is definitely the book you are looking for.. in fact I still have my brother’s book circa 1970’s. I see a previous poster posted a list of a few of the stories. Its the first edition you want. Hope this helps!
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/reader/0613143086/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-page