Status Updates From Scary Stories 3: More Tales...

"Harold" is a scary and powerful story, a conduct warning: impose your own angry, gossipy vision of a bad person onto one who has done nothing to deserve those labels, and the negativity may turn that "blank slate" into a danger you couldn't imagine. Be careful of framing the motives and personality of others as a way of venting your spleen.

Up next, "Harold". A true classic of the Scary Stories trilogy if ever there were one. Each paragraph is as creepy as the double-page opening illustration. Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell are a duo nonpareil.

The distorted illustration of the horse skeleton is every bit as unsettling as the ending of the story about Bess, maybe more.

Stephen Gammell's first great illustration with this book's main text. The staircase is more surreal and viscerally haunting than in the story, by far, and somehow that works to perfection.

Stephen Gammell is good as usual in these opening ghost stories, but Alvin Schwartz has been even better. His literary blending of the macabre and eerie so far is sublime.

"The Bus Stop" is another story of subtle emotional power. Alvin Schwartz is taking no prisoners so far.

"The Appointment" is a powerful story, short as it is. Rearranging your whole lifestyle to avoid perceived risk won't make your life better or safer, it simply introduces new risks that may cut your life short even sooner.

I've barely entered the book and already Stephen Gammell is performing at an otherworldly level. His double-leaf illustration on the title page feels like a rendering of actual Hell.

Each of the last two Halloweens, I've brought the season to a climax by reading the first two books of the Scary Stories trilogy and finally rendering the full review those books deserve. This year, it's time to do the same for Scary Stories 3. Happy Halloween, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell.

:) So... He saw a beautiful ghost.