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Kinds of Scary/"Monstrous Affections" Next Week
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:16:11 -0500
I've been thinking about the different kinds of scary in literature. There are ghosts and other paranormal or supernatural elements of scary--the things not of this world until they become part of it in a work of fiction that imagines them into being in stories grounded n the real world--and there is the scary of behavior, the psychological kind of scary. So,while , a book like Tim Wynne-Jones's "Blink and Caution" might not fit some people's definition of "scary" it totally fits mine when I remember the tension of reading that book, and the way there was monstrous behavior--criminal, cruel--most certainly of our world.
There are also books that traverse these kinds of scary.
A book that I hadn't seen mentioned yet is Tom McNeal's "Far, Far Away." It's a fascinating work on a number of levels, with the ghost of Jacob Grimm a truly benevolent presence in teenager Jeremy Johnson Johnson's life, while the small U.S. town of Never Better feels like the gingerbread house in the forest. I thought McNeal mastefully lulls readers into a false sense of ease, despite narrator's Jacob’s repeated warnings that he sense malevolence, before revealing the danger that lies within the town and the twisted mind behind it.
NEXT WEEK we'll be discussing the y.a. short story anthology "Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales" edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (Candlewick Press). There are fifteen short stories. Here's a very brief teaser from one of them, the opening line of Nik Houser's "Son of Abyss":
"It was Mom's idea for me and Dad to build the blood altar in the garage."
How can lovers of scary not want to read on?
Megan
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:16:11 -0500
I've been thinking about the different kinds of scary in literature. There are ghosts and other paranormal or supernatural elements of scary--the things not of this world until they become part of it in a work of fiction that imagines them into being in stories grounded n the real world--and there is the scary of behavior, the psychological kind of scary. So,while , a book like Tim Wynne-Jones's "Blink and Caution" might not fit some people's definition of "scary" it totally fits mine when I remember the tension of reading that book, and the way there was monstrous behavior--criminal, cruel--most certainly of our world.
There are also books that traverse these kinds of scary.
A book that I hadn't seen mentioned yet is Tom McNeal's "Far, Far Away." It's a fascinating work on a number of levels, with the ghost of Jacob Grimm a truly benevolent presence in teenager Jeremy Johnson Johnson's life, while the small U.S. town of Never Better feels like the gingerbread house in the forest. I thought McNeal mastefully lulls readers into a false sense of ease, despite narrator's Jacob’s repeated warnings that he sense malevolence, before revealing the danger that lies within the town and the twisted mind behind it.
NEXT WEEK we'll be discussing the y.a. short story anthology "Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales" edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (Candlewick Press). There are fifteen short stories. Here's a very brief teaser from one of them, the opening line of Nik Houser's "Son of Abyss":
"It was Mom's idea for me and Dad to build the blood altar in the garage."
How can lovers of scary not want to read on?
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 Fri 17 Oct 2014 02:16:34 PM CDT
