Ozark Ghost Stories (American Storytelling)

The Ozark folk have a tradition of "tradin' lies"--if someone tells a story, the listener is honor-bound to reciprocate. Ranging from the stories of Old Raw Head to the legend of Petit Jean to stories of frightful and mysterious lights, these stories entertain, warn and occasionally provide a lesson.

From Booklist

Gr. 5^-12. "A bony white hand reached up out of the grave and grasped the hem of her dress!" From witch lore to monster yarns, this wonderful collection combines the gruesome with the laconic. The Youngs, who have other popular horror anthologies to their credit, are masterful storytellers, who combine unobtrusive scholarship about folklore and sources, with exciting stories of severed heads and bloody bones. They include "stone-cold favorites" about vanishing riders and boogers and blights and also lesser-known ghost jokes and twisted tales that make the world uncertain. It all seems very close: "It happened one night, on a night like this." Does that statue in the graveyard really move? The Ozark setting is immediate, and so is the universal appeal of tales that have always held people in delicious terror "when the winds blow cold across the ground and the leaves blow along the trail." There are no pictures; just the words to make us shiver. Teens will grab this to read and tell, so will librarians and teachers. Hazel Rochman

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