Frightmares: A Creepy Collection of Scary Stories

by Michael Dahl, Xavier Bonet (Illustrations)

What if you only had one hundred words to warn humanity of a deadly danger? What if your favorite sci-fi movie suddenly turned into a real-life worst nightmare? What if a girl you've never seen before keeps showing up in photos on your cell phone? What if you hear a knocking sound in the middle of the night? In each of the 27 tales in this book, people are afraid. Very afraid. Read their stories. See if you share their fears. Because if you don't now . . . you will.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Childrens

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Michael Dahl is the author of over 200 books for children and young adults, including the acclaimed Finnegan Zwake mystery series and The Library of Doom. His works have earned Edgar and Anthony Award nominations and national design honors. As Editorial Director at Stone Arch Books, he champions engaging, award-winning stories that inspire young readers everywhere.

He also writes under aliases Chris Carey, Rick Thomas, and Mark Ziegler.

Reviews

[San Diego Book Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by Hannah Hom for San Diego Book Review

“Frightmares” by Michael Dahl is a collection of 27 scary short stories. The stories are all different and are moderately scary. This means that they are scary enough to surprise you and scare you a bit but not scary enough to keep you awake at night or to give you nightmares. Mr. Dahl tries to make the reader feel like they are in the stories and he does a pretty good job at that.

You can read this entire review and others like it at San Diego Book Review.

[Kasey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book I read to choose some stories to read to my students. They are scary from a child's perspective and I believe that many will enjoy this stories. I enjoyed the explanations of the stories at the end of the book.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a larger collection of his stories that combined stories from some of his smaller books. It was fun to explore more of his stories and have them themed to certain fright settings. Did you think you were safe at home? He’s got some stories for you.

[Lizzie the Book Hoarder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, scary quick reads.

[Andres Garcia Escalante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bueno recopilación de historias de terror para niños

[Klárka Doušová · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bububu

[Arpit Srivastava · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chillin'. No, really! And I am a 21 year old. He has also told at the end how he got every of his stories which is in the book, individually, which is awesome.

[jisung ☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bastante aburrido, y no, he leído historias de miedo para niños que son mejores que esto

[Autumn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's better when you're reading the stories for the first time, but for me I had read all the stories many times before, so I didn't really enjoy it as much. It's not scary at all.

[Holly Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this to my boys and their friends -all between ages 5-10yrs. They all loved the short stories. They varied in creepiness and some were a little more intense than others, but overall this book offered just the right amount of scary for kids. We all enjoyed the 2-3page stories, which allowed us to move quickly through the book as we stayed up late reading in a tent while camping. I could not have picked a better book for the occasion; this simply was a great book.

[Clarissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun quick 6-8 read that was perfect for Halloween. They stories really are short and some are funny and some are a little...dare I say it...scary. Well not for me but I could see them being scary to a little kid. I especially liked the ones about the Doll Hand, the voice in the bathroom and the man on the stairs.
Overall not much to say it's a book of short scary stories that was fun and easy to read.

[Rachel Grover · Rating 4 out of 5]

tbh, didn't finish the whole thing, just previewed for appropriateness for my MS library. Yep, scary. I would say best for grades 6-7, because they don't fully flesh out each story and inferences help students figure out the ending. A nice gateway into super scary stuff. Will purchase for sure!