13 Days of Halloween: Scream and Scream Again!

Harper; 410 pages; Amazon

Reading a good old fashioned ghost story always gets me in the mood for Halloween, which is one of two reasons why I wanted to read the anthology Scream and Scream Again!. The second reason is because the book is edited by one of my favorite authors - R.L.Stine.

The anthology features twenty young adult short stories from the Mystery Writers Of America. The stories are:

The Best Revenge by R.L. Stine
Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Bruce Hale
Bricks and Bones by Emily Laybourne
Ring and Run by Steve Hockensmith
The Unknown Patriot by Chris Grabenstein
Summer of Sharks by Lisa Morton
Rule Seven by Ray Daniel
Cat Got Your Tongue by Wendy Corsi Staub
The I Scream Truck by Beth Fantaskey
The Witch of Bryon's Bayou by Heather Graham
Bloodstone by Phil Matthews
Area Code 666 by Carter Wilson
The Trouble with Squirrels by Doug Levin
The Necklace and the Monster by Jeff Soloway
The Only Child by Joseph S. Walker
Kamikaze Iguanas by Alison McMahan
The Nightmare Express by Daniel Palmer
The Girl in the Window by Tonya Hurley
Feed the Birds by Stephen Ross
The Platform by Peter Lerangis

I had purchased Scream and Scream Again! several months ago only because I knew it was edited by R.L.Stine and featured a brand-new short story by him. I had no idea the names of the other authors until after I received the book. Some of the bigger names in this anthology include Chris Grabenstein, Wendy Crosi Staub, and Heather Graham.

I'm not going to go into details about the plot of each story, as it will take me all day to write about them. The stories were a hit and miss for me. Some of them were frightening, some weren't too bad, and others just plain sucked, which the latter does include the story by R.L. Stine. Let's just say I thought his story was just plain dumb. Mr. Stine can write better than that!

Out of the twenty short stories, my favorite is Bricks and Bones by Emily Laybourne. It's a surprisingly well written ghost story.

Overall, Scream and Scream Again! is a spooky and entertaining read. Sure, there are a few duds in it, but most of the stories are worth reading.

*Note - Doesn't the house on the art cover remind you of the computer-animated movie Monster House?