Alvin Schwartz’s ‘Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark’ Suffers From New Illustrator

Remember when your grade school friends would be like ‘let’s tell ghost stories’ and you’d pretend to be all into it but really you were hoping that they wouldn’t bring out that horrible book…but they would, and they did.

The book I’m referring to is Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark which was was originally published in 1981 and featured bone-chilling illustrations by Stephen Gammell. His are the ones you remember. Depictions from stories like “The Red Spot,” about a girl whose facial spider bite exploded arachnid babies.

The books were often banned from schools and probably burned daily in Tipper Gore’s backyard next to Prince CDs. The new decade’s illustrator, Brett Helquist, who has previously done work for A Series of Unfortunate Events, Bedtime For Bear and Roger The Jolly Pirate, best watch his back.

After reading Amazon reviews, I imagine rocks with pages from the new edition tied around them flying through his window. As if books read by children these days aren’t already watered down to hell, Brett Helquist has to make it all worse.

He wants you to think that you are best off befriending spiders and scarecrows and sleeping soundly, with no nightmares. That wasn’t my reality, and I don’t want it to be anyone else’s.

If you happen to have an old dusty dime store copy of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark part one two or three (the third was released in 1991) then I recommend selling it/them.

The earlier editions, any published before 2010, are now out of print and are being sold on Amazon for 40 dollars and up. Here are some more comparison photos…

