Need suggestions for PG-13 horror stories

The Monkey's Paw is always good. I think I read it for the first time in about 7th or 8th grade and I didn't lose any sleep over it, though I did think it was pretty cool.

Maybe some Shirley Jackson or Flannery O'connor.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is taught all the time. I think I read it for a class in Junior High, and then much later in a college lit class.

I remember reading Edgar Allan Poe's "Cask of Amantillado" in 9th grade Enlish. I'm sure there's some other Poe that would be appropriate. "The Tell-Tale Heart" or "The Black Cat." If you're interested in showing movies in class, I believe there's an short animated version of Tell-Tale Heart. And, of course, there's all those Vincent Price Poe pictures. Some have almost nothing to do with the original stories, however.

I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately. Some of it would be rather thick reading for 7th or 8th graders, but take a look at "Shadow over Innsmouth." It has a weird mystery to it and some suspenseful action sequences. (The escape from the hotel had me biting my nails!)

I also remember reading some Stephen King short stories from Night Shift in 9th grade (I had a fun teacher). Of corse, Night Shift contains some adult stuff, but I think we read "The Boogeyman" and "The Mangler" for class.

I used to love the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies of short stories. Many were stories that had been adapted for his TV show, although I remember one book, "13 Stories They Wouldn't Let me do on Television," being full of non-televised selections. Funny, that book contained "The Most Dangerous Game" which has been filmed a few times. I think I read "Game" for a class in Junior High, come tho think of it. My favorite author in these Hitchcock books was Robert Arthur. I always read his stories first.

Wow! A trip down memory lane here. Hope this helps you out.

Try "In the Hills, the Cities" by Clive Barker...

"'Cause everyone's afraid of monnn-sterrs..."

HAM you phucker...heh, I read that one early, but with no permission from the aged at all.

I did some research because my brain has this habit of losing information if it's more than 5 years old, plus most of my reading at that age was not governed by parentals (thank God).

Charlotte Perkins Gillman: The Yellow Wallpaper: Freaky freaky story, really wigged me out, very good stuff. Here's a link to an essay she published on why she wrote it which could be a good follow up for the kiddies (http://web.media.mit.edu/~davet/yp/whyiwrote.html)

I suggest Lovecraft as well, it is heavy but still good stuff, and the Re-Animator story is faboo! And Neil Gaiman's Shoggoth's Old Peculiar would be a kick ass follow up to Lovecraft studies, if they laugh, you know they were paying attention wink

Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling have put together many volumes of the year's best fantasy & horror plus a few neat anthologies of modern retellings of fairy tales, & Neil Gaiman's Snow Glass Apples is very good. He also has another spooky story The White Road, and Troll Bridge is excellent. I can't think of anymore PG-13 Neil, but most of his stuff isn't too crazy if you're willing to skim Smoke & Mirrors or Angels & Visitations for something appropriate (keep in mind they repeat a couple of the same stories).

And you could always read some classic fairy tales to boot anyway, those are damn horrific.

And Ray Bradbury has some nifty stuff as well that would be fine for that age group.

That spends my blasted memory for the time being, let us know what you end up reading, I'm curious, plus I never got fun stuff to read in school, except Poe but I think everyone ends up reading at least one Poe story.

What ages is grade 7-8? I'm in the UK so I have no concept of that.

Any of the early Ray Bradbury stuff, like from The October Country or The Illustrated Man. Or you could try Ray's young adult horror novel The Halloween Tree. I don't know about Lovecraft for kids that young; his stuff, besides being rather crudely written in spots, is just so weird the kids would be hopelessly lost just a few pages into any story by him. If you could find it, the Henry Kuttner stories published in Weird Tales might go over big. Matter of fact, a lot of those old Weird Tales stories would probably fit in with what you're looking for. Well, except for maybe Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Like I said Lovecraft could be just too freaky for the age group your intending this material for and Howard may be to intense in the violence and sexual nature departments. Good luck.

Those are the years they teach demolitions, semi-automatic weapons, and how to pretend you're black in American schools.

"In The Hills, The Cities" is a good one (although I don't know how certain American schools would handle the gay elements). It is my sworn Cool Beans duty to point out that John Bolton's gorgeous comic adaptation of the story is available online at <a href="http://www.coolbeansworld.com," target="_blank">www.coolbeansworld.com,</a> along with lots of other groovy horror and sci-fi comics fun.

Back to the matter in hand, "The Thief Of Always" is a Clive Barker story written for children, although it may be longer than you want - it's more of a novella. It is very good though.

Dan
<a href="http://www.coolbeansworld.com" target="_blank">www.coolbeansworld.com</a>

Aha! That was the Clivey one I couldn't for ht elife of me 'member the title. Theif of Always would be perfect

And I wouldn't underestimate that age group (ages 12-14). Not all the little buggers are as brain dead as they seem, and if they're given interesting reading you may be surprised.

Oh, yes. Bradbury. He's the one to go with for the youngsters ... The Veldt and The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl come to mind.

Ah. I started reading King and Herbert when I was 10.

Oh, 7th to 8th grade. I misread and assumed you meant seven and eight year olds. Well, in that case, go ahead and give 'em Lovecraft and Howard. Try out Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons from Hell" with them. That's his best straight horror story.