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Friday, October 29, 2010

All Hallow's Read

Neil Gaiman is calling for a new holiday tradition called All Hallow's Read. How does it work? Just give those you love a scary book this Halloween! He blogged about the idea on his journal.

Here's a link to the simple but helpful site: LINK, YO! The best aspect of the site is the recommendations.

I think this is a great idea! Then again, I think we should give books for every holiday (and every day in between!)! It's the reason why Barbara, Queen of Otter Creek Used Books, and I squirreled away all the best scary books for months in advance. Now they're displayed in the bookstore window.

On Wednesday, a customer bought The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, which is a classic picture book. When I told her how happy I was that she was taking it home, she informed me proudly that it was for her granddaughter.My favorite book that was in the window, was a beautiful, slim volume featuring graveyard epitaphs. There's also a beautiful and haunting coffee table book about graveyards. Plus a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark by Alvin Schwartz with creepy illustrations by Stephen Gammel.Any kid from my generation knows these books were COMPLETELY and UTTERLY TERRIFYING. Seriously, ask someone who was born in the early to mid eighties if they can remember a story from those books. I assure you, they will. Giving a copy of that book to a friend would be like giving them back a sliver (and shiver--teehee) of childhood.

So get in the spirit and give someone you love a scary story this Halloween!

2 comments:

  1. I love the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books! I actually found the three (first?) volumes in the past couple months at a used bookstore, accidentally buying the second one twice and giving it to a friend. They've recently rereleased them with new covers, but those just aren't as scary as these old ones. I am not afraid of clowns or anything, but I couldn't leave that one out face forward. I don't remember the stories being super scary, but the illustrations and the art style were just really creepy.

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  2. What a strange coincidence that you just bought them! Otherwise, I would have sent you the first one (shown) that we have at the story. No one bought it--crazy, right?! There's one story from that collection that literally scarred me for life.

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