Scared to Death

by Jahnna N. Malcolm

Uh oh. . .we've killed the baby-sitter.

Muffie, Elliot, and Quentin Bullock are three rude, crude kids. They swear. They play horrible pranks. They burp. No one will ever baby-sit for them--not if they want to make it out alive.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Bullock accidentally hire the meanest hag of a baby-sitter the kids have ever seen. She's almost as bad as they are. But the Bullock kids are going to scare her good, so their sitter never comes back.

Only this time, they go a little too far. . .

Genres: Horror

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jahnna N. Malcolm is the pen name for husband-and-wife team Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner. Together they've written four musicals, two movies, three CD-ROM games, and nearly one hundred books, including the popular series The Jewel Kingdom. They met in the theater and were married on the stage using Marlowe's famous love letter from "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" as their wedding vows.

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first goosebumps sorta book. I liked it I thought the end was perfect.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scared to Death is about three bratty rich kids (Muffie, Elliot and Quinton) while trying to scare off their latest babysitter. The way the characters act is completely ridiculous. The parents don't care about the kids, which is why they act out in my opinion, and the father threatens to send them to boarding school every 5 minutes because he's a "big New York lawyer."
The babysitter they end up with, Ariadne Belljar, is an interesting and creepy character. Unfortunately, the children go too far while trying to scare her off. What happens after that is a fun, spooky mystery read that I wasn't expecting, but still enjoyed.

If you like Apple Chillers and/or 90's children's horror books in general, check this one out.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

For this to be a Young Adult book, it's very scary. I bought this book in elementary school, and if I would have read it then, it would have been frightening. I finally finished this book at 29 years of age, it was pretty darn scary. I was so into it I read it in one sitting.

I highly recommend this book for people that enjoy Young Adult books, and for people who like a good scare.

[Shawna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me become a reader! I loved it so much! I read this book for the first time, in third grade. That was over twenty years ago! I would recommend this book to any child that likes to read, or any adult for that matter!

[Majid Nobles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book 15 years ago. I loved this book, the story is light and very easy to understand. It's just a short and simple story, perfect for children and light readers who get easily bored with long novels.

[Amy]

This book was seriously so scary. Then again, I was too scared to see the final Harry Potter movie in the theaters, so make of that what you will.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

YES SO GOOD.
Perfect ending.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book when I read it like five years ago. An old favorite!

[Shalynn Pace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fun children’s horror novel!

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elliot, Muffie and Quentin Bullock are three rotten brats, so horrible that no babysitter is willing to return a second time. This summer, they are vacationing in Maine, and when they arrive, Mr. B finds the number for a sitting service and calls immediately, setting a time for that night. Any amount of time with his offspring is too much time.
When the sitter is late, Mr. B calls back, only to find the number disconnected. Caring about nothing but this party they're supposed to attend , he says 'to hell with it, me and your mom are outtie 5000, and if you do anything to mess up this dump of a rental, no more rich kid vacations for you,' and takes off.
A half hour later, the sitter arrives, and the kids describe her as a "Mary Poppins from hell;" Ariadne Belljar. She is a strict, no-nonsense lady, who is not intimidated at all by the kids' actions.
However, shortly after, the kids try desperately to scare her and it works - too well - and she dies. Terrified to get in trouble by their tyrant of a father, they decide to just go to bed and pretend everything was fine before they went upstairs. In the morning, their parents say nothing, confused they run to the library, where they left the body - and she's gone! As soon as the kids go upstairs, they each have a horrible experience - a dead mouse in a doughnut, dozens of gross bugs in a bed, a deadly snake in a suitcase - and as they are blaming each other, they hear an old woman laughing.
Minutes later, Quentin gets a phone call, from none other than the sitter, warning them she'll never let them go. In town later that day, the kids find an article on a bulletin board about a babysitter gone missing in 1953, four weeks after she began sitting for the Kensington family - Ariadne! A second article tells the kids almost immediately after, the whole Kensington family disappeared. Kensington; isn't that the house they're staying at...? What's going on with their rental home, and the babysitter? How can the kids manage to get away from her torment?
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I really liked this one - but my god, what horrible parents! No wonder the kids acted like animals, they were desperate for attention.

[The Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a Kid, I Thought this book was part of The Spooky Goosebumps Book series. Except it wasn't published under the Goosebumps Brand. It contains all sorts of Pop culture References like Transformers, Muppets, Disney etc. I had a Blast reading this as a Kid. The 2 Boys Elliott and Muffy can be jerks but are relatable. The Babysitter Ghost makes a Good Antagonist and The Story gives me a Goosebumps vibe. Recommend.

[Dan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun book. Some disturbing imagery for the target audience. Setting was awesome. Moves along at a swift pace. Thank you Jahnna and Malcolm.

[Zev · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my mind, I call this book "eternally yours," and that's how I recognize it. The edition of the book I read, had the same cover copy and color that my copy in the 90s did. It has a problematic tagline: "the only good babysitter is a dead one" is more often quoted in its original form: "the only good (slur) is a dead one". I've had the slur regularly directed at me. (sourly) But go ahead, cover copy people in the 90s. Other than the tagline, the cover imagery and color is great. Onward. I remember grabbing this at a secondhand shop when I was maybe eight. On the back cover copy, it was touted that the kids sometimes swore. I covered that part up with my thumb, on the off chance my parents asked to see the book and might not let me get it if there were swearwords. There are no swearwords, I learned upon first read. I was disappointed. Mostly I was terrified to the roots of my hair to my bones. I remembered the last five pages most of all. As an adult, I was scrolling through my goodreads feed and someone was asking about the book. I answered, and wanted to read it again. Now, I did. The last five pages are still terrifying, but in a "oh, good, it still stands!" kind of way. I might even add it to my annual Halloween book list. The book is good at slow dread and foreshadowing, even within the confines of what is to me now, a short book. Much of the scariness, though, is dedicated to creepy-crawlies and gross-out instances, but for every two instances of those, there is an instance of genuine spookiness introduced. The biggest problem I had with this book from the first page to the last, was that the writing is too mature. It could have been an excellently creepy YA novel, but I understand why, in the 90s, the author was going for the children's horror market. I'm so glad this still creeped me out.

[Miri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bullock kids are monsters, they terrorize all of their babysitters, torment their parents and pick on each other. When they go to Maine on vacation and their father calls the Eternally Yours sitting service a creepy woman named Ariadne arrives, the kids soon plot to get rid of her, and end up scaring her to death, but Ariadne is vengeful and not even death can keep her away.

[kkorkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

✨CONTAINS SPOILERS✨

This was surprisingly good for a kids book! It’s the type where no adults believe the kids.

I would rate this higher but the parents pissed me off so much. The children are supposed to be bratty and obnoxious, but they just acted like normal kids. It was so sad to see their parents completely ignore them, and at some points I was afraid the dad might resort to physical abuse(of course he didn’t, it’s a kid’s book). I just wanted to see some quality time between the kids and the adults, or even just a hug. The end broke my heart where they just give the kids away to the grandparents 😕🙁☹️