In a Dark Dark Room and other Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz

Easy Fiction Treasure

The youngest readers visiting my Primary school library often ask for a "scary" story. I love this little book because it contains several "scary" stories. Some are quite creepy so I would suggest it is for readers aged 7+.

In a Dark Dark Room was first published in 1984. An anniversary edition was published in 2017 so this book is still available. This is another title that has been culled from my former library. Hopefully a replacement will be purchased.

The stories and poems in this book are: “The Teeth,” “In the Graveyard,” “The Green Ribbon,” “In A Dark, Dark Room,” “The Night It Rained,” “The Pirate,” and “The Ghost of John.”

In a Dark Dark Room links well with A Dark Dark Tale by Ruth Brown which is one of my favourite 'scary' read aloud books. I read this every year to Kindergarten.

You can read more details about the stories and listen to an audio of The Teeth on this blog post by Once my looks go, I've got nothing.  In this post by Betsy Bird for her blog Fuse8n'Kate she compares the two illustrators for this book - Dirk Zimmer and Victor Rivas.

Here is a audio reading of the whole book.

Here are some other scary books I love to share:

The Park in the Dark by Martin Waddell 

illustrated by Barbara Firth

Beware the deep dark forest by Sue Whiting 

illustrated by Annie White

The Flat Man by Rose Impey illustrated by Moira Kemp

You might also look for another book from this series by Alvin Schwartz - Ghosts