When our son learned to walk, he nearly destroyed our home. Using a tabletop to pull himself to his feet, he might snag on a lamp wire and send it smashing to the ground. Once on his feet, he’d trot across the living room, wobbly as a foal, then slam into the far wall and cause a painting to buckle and fall. On one of those occasions I imagined a book based on a child like ours. The story would be about a boy whose greatest joy came from demolishing his surroundings. He had the power to remove his own head and throw it at things. Even better, the head exploded like a bomb. Then he’d grow a new head and have the same fun all over again. I’d call it “The Adventures of Kenny Kaboom.”

A few weeks later, I visited my mother-in-law. She’d been a grade-school teacher for decades and seemed like exactly the person to tell me if my book would appeal to kids. She laughed along as I told her about the story, and agreed there would be lots of children who might enjoy Kenny Kaboom’s adventures. But then she paused and told me who my biggest hurdle would be: the parents. In her experience, grown-ups weren’t too eager to read out loud books about kids with exploding heads. The kids would get it, but the parents might feel scared. And if the parents are frightened you’ll never reach the child.

I thought about that exchange recently when I saw the trailer for the film adaptation of “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” Directed by André Ovredal (“Trollhunter”) and produced by, among others, the Oscar-winning horrormeister Guillermo del Toro, it’s based on a series of short story collections that I’d read when I was young, about 8 or 9. The stories were billed as “collected from folklore,” retold by Alvin Schwartz, the images drawn by Stephen Gammell. I can’t say any one book turned me into a horror writer, but I count these among my essential influences. The stories acted as a divining rod, signaling the morbid well within me. There was the one where a woman returns from the grave to retrieve her missing big toe and the one where baby spiders spill out of a bite on a young girl’s face. And I can’t forget the one with the killer hiding in the back seat of a car. These tales creeped me out. The images beguiled me. I slept with that book under my pillow more times than I can remember and sometimes woke with nightmares as a result. But I returned to them so often the book finally fell apart. (That wouldn’t have been a problem except I’d borrowed it from the library.)

This adoration baffled my mom. Why did I keep coming back to this horrifying book? At that age I didn’t know how to articulate the effect it had on me. In response to her confusion, I’d open to a page, any one would do, and tap on Gammell’s drawings. That’s why.