The Scary States of America

Aliens, ghosts, and monsters haunt the pages of this eerie trip around the Scary States of America. With Jason Specter—the nation's unofficial collector of all things paranormalÑas your guide meet the girl in Illinois who can start fires with her mind, the Skunk Ape of Florida that knocks victims flat with its stench, the mischievous Shadow People of Arkansas, the Jersey Devil, the extraterrestrials who take human organs as a souvenir of their trip to Washington, and the wailing ghost of a teenage girl trapped forever in an Oregon lighthouse. Some of these visitors from other worlds don't mean to hurt anyone . . . and some of them do.Warning: All of these stories are based on true events. Are you ready to face the terror in your state?

From Booklist

The author of numerous series nonfiction and other titles here offers a collection of short stories highlighting all things paranormal. Using the persona of 12-year-old Internet-geek Jason Specter, Teitelbaum presents narratives for each of the 50 states that he says were offered to him by visitors to his blog. Tales range from an Alaska wildlife photographer being chased by an angry Bigfoot, to a young Indiana girl haunting the covered bridge where she lost her life, to a UFO landing in an Iowa crop circle. Some, like "The Hitchhiker," from Alabama, will be familiar to urban-legend aficionados. Many accounts lean toward the grisly (including knife slashings and maggot-filled bodies), but other anecdotes draw attention to gentle apparitions trying to do good deeds for their loved ones. Give this to fans of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series; computer-savvy readers will also want to check out the book's Web site, which includes excerpts from the text. Weisman, Kay

About the Author

Michael Teitelbaum has always had an interest in the paranormal, despite a rather normal childhood growing up in Brooklyn, New York. These days, Michael and his wife, Sheleigah, split their time between New York City and their (as yet unhaunted) 170-year-old farmhouse in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York.

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