Remember Alive Schwartz and Stephen Gammell’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books? Y’know, the ones with the stories that aren’t all that scary but were kinda cute? Oh, and they also had quite possibly THE MOST TERRIFYING IMAGES A CHILD HAS EVER SEEN??? Yeah, those ones.

Originally published in 1981 and with two sequels (one in 1984 and one in 1991), the books collected horror folklore tales and rewrote them for children. Gammell’s illustrations were surreal, nightmarish, and truly haunting, giving many children, including myself, countless nightmares. Yet I couldn’t pull myself away from staring at his pieces, each one as mysteriously gruesome and haunting as the last.

There was a big kerfuffle several years ago when Harper Collins re-released the books but dropped Gammell’s illustrations, replacing them instead with Brett Hellquist, who was known for his art in the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. People who grew up with the original books were outraged and, in my opinion, for damn good reason. You don’t take something that two people worked their asses off to create only to drop the work of one and replace it with something that simply doesn’t feel right. It’s rude.

Well, there’s no need to worry about that because the books with Gammell’s original illustrations are back on sale! If you want to get a paperback box set of the trilogy, you can do so right here!