The Demonata is a young adult horror series by author Darren Shan. It also features some of the first books that got me into horror at a young age.

I started reading these books when I was 12. Specifically the first two books, Lord Loss, and Demon Thief. I first found them by accident, just looking at books with what I thought were cool jacket covers. The artwork for these books immediately caught my attention with their bold colours, and dark imagery. My strongest memory of this series is reading Demon Thief in 6th grade and getting sent to the office. I went to a Catholic school from kindergarten to 6th grade, and in the 6th grade, I did a book report on Demon Thief. As part of this book report we all had to choose a passage from our chosen books and read it to the class. I remember actually being excited about school that day (which was rare), and was confident walking towards the front of the class (also rare) to have my turn. This is the passage I had decided on:

“Something bursts out of the grey light. It has two long legs, a stumpy, leathery body, four arms which end in thick, hairy fingers. A dark green head, a cross between a human’s and a dog’s. No mouth. Long draping ears. Wide, white, evil eyes. The thing grabs Logan. It somehow makes a hissing, whistling noise. Logan stares at it in shock. Two of its hands lock on his head. The others clasp his shoulders. The hairs on its fingers extend, growing at an unnatural speed, digging into the flesh of Logan’s face. One hair darts into his right eye, puncturing it. Logan shrieks with pain. Then the thing’s upper arms jerk apart quickly – ripping Logan’s head off his neck! The monster tosses it to the ground. Stamps down hard with its right foot. And Logan’s severed head pops like a melon dropped from a great height. The thing looks at the rest of us. Spreads its arms and hisses. And thirty-four kids scream as one and crap their pants.”

I had been totally focussed on reading and hadn’t looked up once during my reading. When I finally finished, I looked up, smiling at my class that looked back at me with very mixed reactions. First of all, one person in about thirty clapped, second, a large number of people had their mouths open staring at me, and third, my teacher, staring at me with a look of disgust on her face. You see everyone else had been reading from books like Holes, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Baby-Sitters Club, you know, books that our library actually had. Not mine.

I was sent to the office almost immediately, where I had to read the passage again to the principal, who just sighed and rubbed his face when I finished. I remember him asking me why I chose such a “disturbing book” for my book report, and I remember simply saying “because it’s cool!” I had to take a note home to my parents to be signed, but thankfully my parents were just happy I was still into reading, and signed the note with no issues. In fact, after that, my mom continued to buy me the Demonata books, and at 22 years old, I still have all ten books on my bookshelf.

As you can see from the passage I chose to read, the books are violent, and full of vibrant, colourful imagery, along with some comedy. I loved the characters, relating to all of the young, weird outcasts. I always had friends growing up, but it wasn’t until much later in life that I actually found friends who liked horror as much as I do, and these books gave me weird friends that were always ready to hang out.

These books take place in the quite recent past, and are largely set in other worlds, where demons and monsters exist. These worlds captured my wild imagination immediately and had me hooked right from the start. Looking back on them now, certainly they are juvenile, but they are a great jumping off point for a young person into the world of horror books, and i highly recommend them to young readers.