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CCBC-Net in October: Finding the Scary
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 09:56:07 -0500
Our CCBC-Net topic for October is "Menacing and Macabre: Finding the Scary."
Why do scary or chillling or guesome stories appeal to some readers? What books have you or the young readers with whom you interact found especially noteworthy or appealing?
Our two discussion books will be:
Week of October 20: Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (Candlewick Press, 2014)
Gavin Grant will join us midweek for the discussion of "Monstrous Affections," a smart, richly developed collection of short stories for young adults.
Week of October 27: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean (HarperCollins, 2008)
I was reading a televsion review of the FX series "The Strain" by Emily Nussbaum in "The New Yorker" recently, and it included a quote from the show's co-creator, Guillermo del Torro, that made me think about this month's discussion topic. Nussbaum writes:
"del Toro in particular is one of the world’s more lovable cheerleaders for the power of the grotesque, in every medium. 'The way your body needs the exercise, your brain needs to be exposed to the flight-and-fight instincts. And you seek it through a roller coaster, or some people seek it through extreme sports, or you can seek it in genres like noir, crime, horror,' he said, in a recent interview."
As someone who is not a literary thrillseeker (at least not when it comes to reading horror), I appreciated this way of thinking about these genres. And yet, I think that being scared to the point our adrenaline is pumping is only one type of scary. Sometimes what we find in scary or upsetting is more subtle than this. I think there is a continuum of scary that can include books that are vaguely unsettling or darkly humorous as well as the truly frightening or macabre. And of course, just like humor, what we find scary is subjective.
An example for me of a book that is unsettling in the best kind of way, and darkly funny too, is "Fat and Bones and Other Stories" by Larissa Theule (Carolrhoda, 2014). This collection of interconnected short stories had me surprised from the opening pages. I simply did not know what to expect at any moment in the collection. And yet the entire time I was reading, I thought how gutsy it was to explore, confront, really, less noble elements of human nature (even though many of the characters are not human). But I'm always looking for the light, and it was there, also unexpectedly.
Megan
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 09:56:07 -0500
Our CCBC-Net topic for October is "Menacing and Macabre: Finding the Scary."
Why do scary or chillling or guesome stories appeal to some readers? What books have you or the young readers with whom you interact found especially noteworthy or appealing?
Our two discussion books will be:
Week of October 20: Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (Candlewick Press, 2014)
Gavin Grant will join us midweek for the discussion of "Monstrous Affections," a smart, richly developed collection of short stories for young adults.
Week of October 27: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean (HarperCollins, 2008)
I was reading a televsion review of the FX series "The Strain" by Emily Nussbaum in "The New Yorker" recently, and it included a quote from the show's co-creator, Guillermo del Torro, that made me think about this month's discussion topic. Nussbaum writes:
"del Toro in particular is one of the world’s more lovable cheerleaders for the power of the grotesque, in every medium. 'The way your body needs the exercise, your brain needs to be exposed to the flight-and-fight instincts. And you seek it through a roller coaster, or some people seek it through extreme sports, or you can seek it in genres like noir, crime, horror,' he said, in a recent interview."
As someone who is not a literary thrillseeker (at least not when it comes to reading horror), I appreciated this way of thinking about these genres. And yet, I think that being scared to the point our adrenaline is pumping is only one type of scary. Sometimes what we find in scary or upsetting is more subtle than this. I think there is a continuum of scary that can include books that are vaguely unsettling or darkly humorous as well as the truly frightening or macabre. And of course, just like humor, what we find scary is subjective.
An example for me of a book that is unsettling in the best kind of way, and darkly funny too, is "Fat and Bones and Other Stories" by Larissa Theule (Carolrhoda, 2014). This collection of interconnected short stories had me surprised from the opening pages. I simply did not know what to expect at any moment in the collection. And yet the entire time I was reading, I thought how gutsy it was to explore, confront, really, less noble elements of human nature (even though many of the characters are not human). But I'm always looking for the light, and it was there, also unexpectedly.
Megan
--
Megan Schliesman, Librarian
Cooperative Children's Book Center
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Room 401 Teacher Education
225 N. Mills Street
Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503
schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
ccbc.education.wisc.edu
My regular hours are T-F, 8-4:30.
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Received on Tue 07 Oct 2014 10:05:35 AM CDT
