Don't Read This: And Other Tales of the Unnatural

by Margaret Mahy (Editor)

An international collection of ghost stories and spooky tales by such authors as Susan Cooper, Roberto Piumini, and Bjarne Reuter.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Childrens, Young Adult, Fantasy

213 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 1996

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grabbed this book from an endcap at the library because the cover freaked me out so much. Mirrors and hands and hands that aren't reflected in mirrors are so scary!!! I even had to keep it turned over so I couldn't see the cover after I read a story before bed every night. Unfortunately, that was the only scary thing about this book. My eight-year-old nephew, who is notorious for being afraid of things, read the first story and wasn't scared at all, so I knew it wasn't just me being too old for it. This book would be perfect for the obnoxiously precocious kid who would say "Sure, books about ghosts are good for a little thrill, but what is truly horrifying is the appalling situation in Bosnia." So many of the stories dealt with non-supernatural things (war crimes being one of them), or ended too succinctly, with too many sweet or feel-good endings. It's not that I didn't finish this because it was horrible (the stories weren't poorly written), but rather because the book was due back and I realized how little I cared about it.

[R.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

English review below the Greek one...

Υποτίθεται ότι η συλλογή ανήκει στο είδος της λογοτεχνίας του τρόμου. Αν και απευθύνεται σε νεανικό κοινό κι όχι σε κοινό της ηλικίας μου, παρόλα αυτά βρήκα την περιγραφή παραπλανητική.
Οι περισσότερες ιστορίες είναι παραμύθια. Κάποιες είναι καλογραμμένες, αλλά όχι μόνο δεν είναι τρομακτικές, αλλά παραείναι γλυκανάλατες πολλές φορές. Υποθέτω ότι εξαρτάται από τις προσδοκίες του κάθε αναγνώστη, όμως δεν νομίζω ότι ένα παιδί θα τρομάξει διαβάζοντας το βιβλίο, πόσο μάλλον ένας ενήλικας.


Of course this is a collection for children/young adults, so I'm not the target age, but the blurb makes you expect some darker and scarier stories. I guess it depends on one's expectations, but I was kind of disappointed, because spine-chilling tales these are not, on the contrary often they are too soft or sugary.

Margaret Mahy, Fingers on the Back of the Neck 3/5 The story is kind of predictable and too didactic for my liking, although decent enough.

Uri Orlev, The Song of the Wales 3+/5 This is a nice fairytale featuring a very sweet relationship between grandfather and grandson and the special abilities they share. There are some other weird minor threads in the story too. Nothing scary at all here.

Charles Mungoshi, The Mountain 3/5 A decent story, a bit too poignant for my liking. Again I was hoping for some supernatural element or some subtle horror, but nothing really happens...

Susan Cooper, Ghost Story 3+/5 Again a bit too didactic for my liking, but at least this story has some slight supernatural activity to show.

Roberto Piumini, Don't Read This 3/5 Some kind of metafiction touch and a very poignant commentary on human nature, but nothing really paranormal or what I'd expect from this kind of book.

Klaus Kordon, The Ravens 3+/5 This story features some of the traditional fairytales' traits and it was well-written but not exactly scary.

Eiko Kadono, The Mirror 3+/5 An interesting premise, although a bit confusing sometimes. Again the child-reader's perspective is strong and the text a bit too poignant.

Paul Biegel, The Ivory Door 3+/5 Another fairytale, decent and well-written, often witty, but still a fairytale. Not really a scary story.

Kit Pearson, The Eyes 3+/5 This story is slightly darker that the others of the book, there is some irking ambiance, but again it gets too didactic and poignant towards the end.

Bjarne Reuter, Grandfather's Clock 3+/5 Yet another sweet faitytale featuring a grandfather and grandson. A couple of weird moments and some adventures lead to a predictable ending.

Jordi Sierra i Fabra, Uninvited Guests 3/5 A decent little story with a witty twist at the end, but too short and not scary.

[Audrey (Warped Shelves) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

I rated each story as I went through and my average came out to 2.5. That's fair for an anthology, I'd say. The writing was decent (though more often than not, dull) in each story. None of these were scary. Eerie, yes. Scary, no. Horror? Definitely not. Some stories just confused me and I could have done without them. Others amused me. A few shocked me with just how dark they were, especially for a Children's/YA anthology. This collection is a good way to kill some time between books, but nothing outstanding in and of itself.

But hey, maybe I'm just too old and my taste for horror and macabre dulled by the likes of Stephen King and American Psycho .


Popsugar 2020 Reading Challenge: an anthology
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[Pvw · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great collection of stories for children. The title story is about a story that writes itself and urges the reader not to read on. And when he still does so, the story accuses the reader of being an accomplice to the unleashing of a terrible danger in the end. Most tales in this volume have a bad ending, it is a relief to see a children's book that doesn't treat its target audience as children by serving them a happy feelgood ending.

[DeAnna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had to be read without any interruptions and needs to be read with a open minded reader that'll understand what's going on and the content being read. Without being open-minded and and patient, the read will come off dull and boring, but if you read it more than once and give it a chance you might just love it😍😍😍

[AquaMoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best collection of scary stories I've ever read. Some dragged on and without a point and others were just plain confusing. There were a few gems, though...and for that this book receives 3 Stars.

[Melanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. I knew it would be for younger readers, but I could only get through the first two stories and couldn't finish it. The stories weren't even scary. Maybe they would have been scary to a young reader, but I just couldn't force myself to finish it.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of scary short stories by various writers. I thought it was fairly good overall. Many of the stories seemed to feature grandparents.

[Evelynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOt really my type of book.