Continue Reading Below Advertisement

When you keep ratcheting up the fear and then recontextualize the story so one of the elements is no longer a threat, you teach people reason and courage: circumstances change, and we can be the ones to change them

In this case, we expect the story of unreasonable evil, but we get someone whose behavior is polite and helpful despite appearances. The readers who still want to bludgeon the monster after it proves to be a nice guy are never going to leave home and probably grow up to vote Tea Party.

#1. Controversy

This is one of the most prohibited books in school library history, right after Mein Kampf for Kidz but ahead of Debbie Does Decimals. And with good reason -- any school worldly enough to teach evolution is going to prohibit a book that proves, by virtue of being a portal to Hell, that Satan is real (and wants you to believe in evolution).

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

The thing is, a book that's provocative enough to get banned is interesting enough to scare people who don't understand that reading doesn't make something reality. Mein Kampf is a grotesque document but it can give insight into how authoritarian goons think so that we recognize such arguments the next time a demagogue uses them. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses an awful word casually ... but only to show how dehumanizing that word really is, and how you should stand by good people no matter what society tells you to do.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Most books are useful to society one way or another if read critically. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark performs the important function of scarring children. Besides, I actually had to read Atlas Shrugged for high school English, and that dreck is worse for tender psyches than a thousand spiders pouring from an open boil.

HarperCollins

As seen here and in that nightmare you can never remember upon waking.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

No matter how bad things get (spider bite) they can always get worse (spider eggs). But if we're willing to open our minds to the horrific possibilities, we can handle them. That's what these books taught us, with tales of folks who didn't always lose their cool when they came eye-to-eye-socket with their worst fears. A controlled setting like these pages gives us a sandbox in which to practice these confrontations, and rather than be warped by them, shape them to our needs -- even if those needs are to slowly and agonizingly murder the witch who cursed us.

Because I love my nieces, I shall be giving them the gift of pants-wetting terror this Halloween. It's not just a fun thrill; it's a chance to look what scares you in the eye, challenge it and grow to realize the only thing we have to fear is fAAAAHH GOD HERE IT COMES AGAIN!!

Brendan McGinley was never seen again ... not even in the background of Jack Reacher. But they say he still tweets from beyond the grave @BrendanMcGinley.

Brendan faced real-life monsters here on Cracked in The 7 Types of Chris Brown Twitter Troll and the ultimate response to childhood trauma in 5 Reasons Batman Always Wins.