Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the World

by Arielle North Olson (Compiler), Howard Schwartz (Compiler), David Linn (Illustrator)

What is real and what is imaginary? Do evil creatures lurk in the shadows? Do demons attack the helpless? Are there such things as invisible men? For generations, storytellers have given substance to our worst fears. In Ask the Bones, master storytellers Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz retell a varied selection of the world's most frightening folktales. Be warned-these stories could scare you to death!

Illustrated by David Linn.

"These twenty-two stories provide a wide variety of supernatural happenings that won't disappoint the young horror acolyte." (The Horn Book, starred review)

The haunted forest (Uzbekistan)
The murkey secret (United States)
Next-of-kin (Spain)
The bloody fangs (Japan)
Ask the bones (Caucasus Region)
The four-footed horror (United States)
Beginning with the ears (Iraq)
Fiddling with fire (United States)
The Laplander's drum (England)
A night of terror (Eastern Europe)
Nowhere to hide (Russia)
The handkerchief (China)
The mousetrap (Iceland)
The speaking head (Eastern Europe)
The dripping cutlass (United States)
The black snake (Persia)
The hand of death (Mexico)
The invisible guest (Germany)
A trace of blood (United States)
The bridal gown (Germany)
The greedy man and the goat (Russia)
The evil eye (United States)

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Supernatural, Paranormal, Young Adult, Fantasy

145 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Arielle North Olson is an author of children's books.

Arielle is the daughter of noted author Sterling North, who wrote Rascal. She is also the niece of author, poet, and editor Jessica Nelson North. She is one of the copyright owners of Sterling North's body of work. She now has 3 children and 7 grandchildren, and is a resident of St. Louis, Missouri.

Arielle is from a multi-generation literary family. Arielle's great-grandparents, James Hervey Nelson and Sarah Orelup Nelson, were Wisconsin pioneers. In 1917, which would have been her great-grandfather James Hervey Nelson's 100th birthday, three of her great-uncles, including early Amazon missionary Justus Henry Nelson, wrote extended biographies about their parents and their pioneer farm life. These writing efforts may have been a literary inspiration to both her father, Sterling, and her aunt, Jessica.

Reviews

[Johnny Vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting to me and made me want to read more. It was written by Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz.This book could be fiction or non-fiction, it all depends on if you believe.Reading this book,it made we wonder if I ever seen or heard ghost;it made me realize,what happens after death.This book created scary emotions for me, but at the sametime, my reaction was to see read more.This book has all different kinds of stories from around the world. Some are in the United States,some are in Japan. In my background, I have never came face to face with a ghost.This book does really help you in a way, it informs you about what happens in the world.In this book,there is not a main chracter,but all the chracters in this book all have the same plot. Which deals with creatures in different stories.The creatures contribute the conflicts and they also control the solution.The two literary tools used in this book are imagery and writing style. They both directly relate to the text; Imagery plays apart in how the author describes the creatures.And the writing style makes the text feel like someone is really reading to you.
I liked this book because it was interesting to me and how it made me feel.I think other people should read this book because it informs you about the world and because it was a thiller. I ask myself, if this book could have a National Book Award? In all the Stories in this book,why can't there be more happy endings,instead of sad endings? Like if the people involed with a conflict would'nt get hurt.The theme that I learned in this book is,"If it is'nt worth saving don't be a hero."I wonder if all types of animals can be ghost, or if just some can? Overall this book is interesting to me and if you like thillers, this is a good book for you.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would be very good for young kids (5th grade) but the ghost stories in it are not very appealing or even spooky for older readers. I thought I would hear some interesting tales, being as the book was supposedly collected from various countries, but it felt more like a collection of ordinary folk tales as opposed to ghost stories. Like I said: great for younger readers, not for older readers.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't call this book a collection of scary stories. They were more like fairy tales with unhappy endings. I own some book of fairy tales from all around the world, so some stories seemed a little bit familiar, and I liked that.
I wasn't scared by this book. At all. I'm disappointed.

[Alexandra Kern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute, easy read. Even as an adult, I enjoyed these stories. I sat down and read it in two hours. I like the diversity of the stories. Not all of them turned out well for the main characters, which I liked. I also enjoyed reading about scary stories from other countries. Definitely worth a read!

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of scary stories from around the world...except I don't think some of them are very scary. And my mom says you can read the book as long as you don't show up in your parent's room in the middle of the night. Then your mom takes away your scary-book-check-out-privileges at the library.

[Amanda Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to read by the camp fire.

[Danelle Our-Wolves-Den · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review in the works

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of folktales from around the world. I think the sequel is my favorite, but that's probably because of how many times I read it.

[Miranda Paris]

Great collection of scary stories for the young elementary crowd (Gr. 2-5).

[Zpro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book "Ask the Bones" by Arielle North Olson and Howard Schwartz is a collection of horror stories from different countries. In this book, you will encounter vengeful ghost dogs, the devil bargaining for souls, witches enslaving students and turning them into oxen, evil princesses, greedy wizards, speaking severed heads, and ghostly pirates. My favorite story came from Eastern Europe and was titled "The Speaking Head." In this story, Joseph, a 12 year old boy is trapped by a demon in a room at the top of a castle tower. Trapped in the room with Joseph, is an 80 year old man's head which has been severed from his body. The head informs Joseph that the demon plans to cut his head off when he turns 13. The demon will then put a spell on Joseph, forcing him to reveal secrets. With the help of the severed head, Joseph tries to escape the tower in this classic horror tale.
I would give this book 5 stars. It was interesting to hear horror stories from countries other than my own. Each story was well written and kept me on the edge of my seat. I even had a nightmare about a severed head.

[Amanda Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have LOVED this as a kid! It reminds me so much of my uncle’s old copy of “Myths and Legends of Many Lands” that he read as a kid and that I had as a hand-me-down. I adored that old book, and read through it many times. This YA collection gave me similar vibes. I didn’t realize it was for young adults when I picked it up, I just grabbed it off of Thriftbooks on a whim when I was shopping for horror anthologies.

There are 22 short tales from (in no particular order) Uzbekistan, the United States, Spain, Japan, Russia, Iraq, England, Eastern Europe, China, Iceland, Mexico, and Germany. It also includes a story from Persia, so I’m guessing modern-day Iran? But perhaps not, it’s unclear. (And I realize that tracing the origins of folklore is a complicated discipline in and of itself.) This is a short collection—I finished reading it in just over two hours.

The stories are very short and although they have creepy undertones and some have “scary” cliffhanger endings, it’s nothing more violent or shocking (in my opinion) than the fairy tales you might be more familiar with: Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, etc. Fools, talking animals, clever schemes, and magic tricks tell us tales of greed and ambition, carelessness and vengeance, and cruelty versus mercy.

It might be fun to learn a couple of these stories and keep them in mind to tell the next time you’re around a campfire, although that brings to mind questions of cultural appropriation versus appreciation.

[Hugh's BigBookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a terrifying, bone-chilling read that gave me nightmares for a week. Not strictly "Horror" stories through and through, but still retains its frightening, bizarre barrage of twists and turns. The most haunting tale for me was the story, "Beginning with the Ears", in which a kindly rich old woman who helps a down-on-his luck family man enjoy a life of luxury turns out to be a shapeshifting witch who eats her prey, shocked me beyond feasible expressions of words. That being said, its also kind of dumb when you give it too much thought, which damages my initial thoughts of it and makes it lose its hold on me. Going back to the story, it ends with the witch filing her teeth and asking him where to start. He replies basically saying, "My wife warned me twice but I did not listen so eat me beginning with the ears". What kind of Dumb@$$ just sits around and says that when they should be running or fighting for their life? The other stories also have that problem of betraying logic for thrills and chills which do not last as well as you would like them too, which actually started the steady decline of me rating this 5/5 but then trying (and failing) to suspend my disbelief and then rating it4/5 and trying and failing again and rating it my current rating of 3/5. Thinking more of it, any one of the Short and Shivery or Scare Yourself to Sleep collections of scary stories aimed at younger readers were better than this. Good enough book, but not as good as I remembered or hoped it would be.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 4 out of 5]

An international version of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Quite fun. I've been reading a lot of Italian fairy tales lately (what with one thing and another), and a lot of these stories are built like fairy tales with the happy ending taken off, or the character surviving and having nightmares about the events for the rest of their lives! Great illustrations, too. Very short.

[Nettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps I didn't enjoy this much because I didn't realize it was for kids, but some of the stories therein were kind of forgettable.
I did like certain stories, and loved the idea of stories from around the world being retold. As a kid, I probably would have loved this, but as an adult, most of these were written so simply that I found them cheesy or dull.
Definitely going to pass it along to the nieces and nephews though. They'd probably dig it.

[Nikolina · Rating 2 out of 5]

znaci nista gluplje u zivotu nisam procitala. kao ljubitelj horora s naslovom "zastrasujuce price iz cijeloga svijeta" me zaintegriralo. mala knjiga od stotinjak stranica i sa 20-ak prica. price o vjesticama, carobnjacima, divovima, carobnom misu, duhovi pirata koji cuvaju svoje blago.. jeze ni malo, slobodno djeci citat prije spavanja, od dosade ce odmah zaspat..

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun & interesting read. Yes, it is a children's book but I think that teens & adults would enjoy the book too. Short stories from a variety of countries & I do like that the stories are from around the world (not just England or America or Russia but all over). There is definitely a bit of a spooky element, even for older readers.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had picked this up as a kid I would’ve been INCENSED!!! Much more a fairy tale/folk tale collection than a scary story collection. And practically every other story is from the United States, so “Scary Stories from Around the World” is a bit of a stretch. The handful of illustrations were great, though. More of those!!

[Jacob Borre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most anthology books, this book was a mix of pretty good stories and pretty lame stories. It's not at all scary, but a handful are spooky in a fun way. It seems that the writer crammed the best stories in the beginning, as the second half had a lot of boring filler with a few good stories sprinkled in.

[William Stanger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting little book of 'scary' folk tales from around the world that were probably aimed at a younger audience. They weren't that scary, but were more unpleasant. Some of them were great, but others not so much.

[Carson hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved these stories! As other reviewers have said these are more like folk tales than scary stories, but they did not disappoint. I love folk tales too. My favorite was from Japan, I believe it was called The Bloody Fangs.

[Emily Ruiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a good, quick read but I was hoping for it to be more scary. It wasn’t as scary as what I thought it would be which is why I’m giving it a three; however, I think it’s still a good book, definitely for teens.

[Chenil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the stories were urban legends that have been told over and over so the book didn't feel new or interesting. I did enjoy hearing the perspectives from other countries in the world, it was fun to see the little changes.

[Rick Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Beginning with the Ears" was scariest for me. I wish that "The Haunted Forest" had a definitive ending. The real horror in most of the other stories was in just how stupid some of the characters were.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are different from most I've read before, however, the writing leaves much to be desired.

[Carmen Slaughter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of stories that are excellent to read aloud for groups of all ages.
Ours was between nine and ninety. Something for everyone.

[Nancy Vazquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it was an entertaining book it was kinda easy to read. I really enjoyed the different stories it had although it could do to be longer.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. Had some interesting stories, but also some really dumb ones.

[Sandy Carmichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read about weird happenings around the world, myths more or less.

[Midnight Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Younger Folks

A good anthology, but I would've enjoyed it more when I was an adolescent, I think. It's in the same mode as the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little stories, I just wish the women in the stories weren't all monsters or victims.