more scary stories to tell in the dark by alvin schwartz

So why are these stories so uniquely terrifying? And why have kids devoured them throughout the decades? Schwartz claims to just follow his gut when it comes to figuring out what kids will like. (Let’s hope he didn’t experience what the movie’s trailer suggests: “If we repeat stories often enough, they become real.”) An illustration by Stephen Gammell from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark via Flickr His process, therefore, includes reading his writing aloud to himself in the bathroom (“because the acoustics are so good”) three or four times to make sure it all sounds right.

He also reveals that he thinks of all his stories as oral folktales. Sometimes I will go so far as to study the structure of an item to see how it works, because this is important in making selections. I was not aware of this with Scary Stories until I began searching the material and putting it together. In working with “scary story” material, one finds five or six or seven typologies. “What’s interesting is that eventually patterns emerge,” he says.

In a Q & A for Language Arts, Schwartz tells Vardell that his process involves learning everything he can about a genre, discussing each topic with scholars and folklorists, and doing extensive research at Princeton University’s Firestone Library.

Schwartz began collecting folklore in the early 1970s, conducting extensive research and interviews to uncover engaging tales. Schwartz’s process includes reading his writing aloud to himself in the bathroom (“because the acoustics are so good”). Vardell writes: “Who has done for folklore for children in the United States what the Grimm brothers did in Germany…? Alvin Schwartz, that’s who!” As the children’s literature scholar Sylvia M. Schwartz, the man behind your childhood nightmares, was in fact a scholarly folklorist, author of more than fifty books, and the father to four children, who helped him to develop his work. Upon reexamination in the light, these stories are as simple and plainly told as folktales and urban legends.

To Schwartz’s readers, hitchhikers, scarecrows, skin bumps, and green ribbons never looked the same. Written by Alvin Schwartz -and distinguished by Stephen Gammell’s gruesome illustrations -the original series of Scary Stories books (published in 1981, 1984, and 1991) were fervently swapped at school libraries and sleepovers alike. The new movie Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, from André Øvredal and Guillermo del Toro, has kids of the 80s and 90s reminiscing about the terrifying source material.

More scary stories to tell in the dark by alvin schwartz