The Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard

Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard #1

by Mark Mills, Richard Kriegler

Beware!

Between the pages of this book are some of the most terrifying tales known to man!

A man stops for a meal at a country inn only to be served by a--skeleton!
A woman awakens to find her husband standing at the side of her bed--but her husband has been dead for years!
A railroad brakeman is warned of a dangerous curve ahead by an old friend--but the friend is missing his head!

So lock your doors. Pull your covers around you tightly. Try not to scream. And open this book--if you dare. You are about to read. . .

The Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard

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

92 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1988

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my fondest memories from grade school are about books -- RIF days when we got to go to the library to pick out a book, those Fridays where the teachers handed out forms for book orders, and bringing books to school to trade with friends (We always swapped Laura Ingalls Wilder books with each other). Every time I'm in a thriftshop or used book store, I always gravitate to the section that has all the children's paperbacks. Most of the time I find a few I want to take home to read....partly because the stories are entertaining and partly for nostalgia.

There are three books in this little horror story series for kids. This is the first book...I found a copy of the second book (Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard Vol II by Katharine Burt) at 2nd and Charles Books one day. 75 cents. Yep....it came home with me. But....having bought volume 2, I started wondering about the awesome stories that must be in volume 1....

So I hunted down this book. And, while doing that, discovered that there is also a Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard Vol III ! I am very thankful to digital library borrows -- that lovely gift of the internet age gave me the opportunity to read this book, published by Willowisp Publishing in 1988.

This collection of 14 short little creepy tales gravitates to middle grade age kids, but I enjoyed it too! A nice mix of ghost stories, urban legends, and campfire style tales, this book was a quick, fun read! I could see this book being used at Halloweentime in a classroom setting to get young but reluctant readers to read for fun, as a creative writing tool (read a story/have students try writing their own short, scary story), or for reading aloud. As for me, I had a very enjoyable morning of reading and remembering similar stories we scared each other with while camping when I was a kid. :)

The cover art is awesome!

Great book! On to Volume 2!

[McCaid Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who doesn't like a good, scary story?
This collection of them are definitely creepy and very entertaining! They are perfect for telling around the fire or at a slumber party late in the night. Will definitely be keeping some of these with me!

Favorite ones: The Horrible Hook, The Horror In The Backseat, Prom Fright, The Incredible Case Of Captain Hanson's Leg, Taily-po
Scariest one: The Horror In The Backseat (followed closely by Prom Fright)

[Gator · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this to My children every night at bed time for the last week of October to All Souls Day. I wanted to get them into them into the Autumn/Halloween spirit so this was my choice for them. About a dozen short stories, all of them are good.
This would be a great camping book to
Tell by a campfire to a young crowd.
🎃💀👻👹

[Dope Ghost Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

A massive rip-off of Alvin Schwartz' 1981 collection, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark...at least it feels that way. I mean, both collections are based on folklore and campfire stories, with a majority of the stories presented here already covered in Alvin Schwartz' series (and done better in my humble opinion). Mark Mills adds new bits and pieces to the lore making it feel like Goosebumps-themed urban legends, but it's not scary whatsoever. Fun to read, easy and accessible if you have an hour to kill reading a 100 page short story collection, but not frightening.

"A Deadly Night At The Dew-Drop Inn", "The Hand", "The Baby-Sitter", "Prom Fright!", "The Night Of The Sasquatch", "The Dog Man", and "The Terrifying Tale Of Taily-Po" are my preferred reads in this cavalcade of redundancy; the other tales are alright, no stinkers, they just are very generic and simple-minded. Kids will dig it!

[Austin Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember reading these Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard books when I was a youngin' and so I was excited to revisit these.
These are, quite simply, Mark Mills' retelling of campfire-type stories and old folk legends. These are all stories (or versions thereof) I've read numerous times before in Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, J.B. Stamper's Tales For the Midnight Hour, and many others.
This is not at all a bad book, just unoriginal and didn't provide much entertainment for myself. I'm hoping the other two books in this series (both by different authors) will have original stories instead of retold folklore.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book that I grew up on. It has different stories that are great for camping or just reading under the covers with your little flashlights. I would love to own this book for my son.

[Stacy Simpson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cant beleive I liked this book....after re-reading it they stories were god awful!

I have had nightmares that were better! Needless to say out it goes!

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember sneak reading this after bedtime with my red flashlight underneath my covers!

[Kaelin O'Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read. Most of the stories I've heard before, some with a few twists. The second book in this series was my favorite. Fun to read around Halloween time.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first part of a great series of horror stories (three volumes) and it was a tad weaker to be honest. Okay you had the usual share of urban legends, classic shockers and youth gone wild stories but everything was a bit slower and more harmless than the other two books. Overall a fine read for the season, spooky, quick and twisty. You probably heard some of the stories in a different way. An excellent start into the whole series and therefore fully recommended!

[Amy]

Revisiting this trilogy, as it is the first collection of "horror" stories I have ever read and I have not read them since elementary school. I stopped playing oregon trail at recess just to get my little paws on these bad boys....

[Rob Roehm · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of “scary” campfire stories, all vaguely familiar, including “The Horrible Hook” and “The Baby-sitter.” You know the kind: a couple is parked at a romantic location when news of an escaped maniac comes over the radio—a maniac with a hook for a hand!

[Dale Kamp · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A woman awakens to find her husband standing at the side of her bed--but her husband has been dead for years!" -yeah, that one stuck with me for decades.

10-year-old me enjoyed this one during Halloween in 1997!

[Granger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too thrilling, but not bad. Some stories were the same as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

[☆ emeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

eek

[Katelin ♥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐️ This was a fun short book filled with spooky short stories. Nothing crazy, but overall a good time.

[Athena · Rating 3 out of 5]

So fun. An interesting mix of harmless events that only appear scary and bloody tales of people getting murdered.

[Jason Harlow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology is the first entry in a three-part series and is by far the worst of the three. These stories are mostly just re-tellings of old urban legends that you've heard a million times, except more tame in most cases. Other than one story about a hand, there is nothing that stood out as memorable in any way. This book came nowhere close to living up to its ridiculous title and its sequels are far, far better. Would highly advise skipping this.

[C. (Don't blank click my reviews, comment please! · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard” is a 1988 collection of typical thrill fables by Mark Mills (of Oregon, USA) that one breezes through. Many are predictable, like urban legends woven before. I might have doled out a higher rating, however it ended with a short story that I found at once grotesque but also lame. A monster laments a missing appendage with babyish language but tears apart those in his path. It is also comes across lamely to consider that all would be averted if the hermit of the story had not discarded the appendage in the grossest manner but had rather, left himself in a position to return it upon demand.

That less desirable yarn aside, many of them have a successful chill factor but I think what reduces their ability to grip a reader is that they are unquestionably fictitious. It is immediately apparent that none of them have any possibility of being true. They are wholly intended as short stories with a startling conclusion - a bang. I think they would impress younger horror fans and indeed, I believe the editor’s introduction indicates that this is for whom they were compiled. This anthology of spooky anecdotes was penned with brevity, ideal to be memorized and re-told, in a personalized fashion to startle friends. It’s worth the second-hand price at which you’d encounter it nowadays.

In these days of 2014, the paranormal (spirits) and ‘supernatural’ (vampires) are furiously in vogue, so appreciators of these mini thrills wouldn’t be in short supply. However the subject manner is much more along the lines of urban horror legend. A boy plays a demented joke on a babysitter, a couple finds a hook outside their car, a poor girl fruitlessly frightens herself to death; the tragedy being that nothing is there...