Tales to Keep You Up at Night

June 1, 2022
Can reading a story make it real? After her grandmother has been missing for a year and is presumed dead, Amelia and her younger brother, Winter, go with their moms to clean out her house. In a dream, Grandmother appears to Amelia, leading her to the attic, where she discovers a weathered book called Tales To Keep You up at Night, complete with a spine label and due date card. Grandmother warns her not to read it, so Amelia returns it to the library and learns from the librarian that it isn't part of their collection. Overcome by curiosity, she settles into a cozy corner to read the 13 stories with titles like "Baby Witch" and "Screamers." As she finishes the final entry, she discovers she's alone in the library--it's been locked up for the night, and there's no sign of Win or the librarian. A sense of disquieting horror settles over her. Could the stories Amelia was reading become reality? Alternating between Amelia's storyline and the contents of the book she's reading, Poblocki's delightfully constructed offering is somewhere between a literary matryoshka and an ouroboros as the vignettes twine perilously around each other, rewarding close readers and demanding rereads. It includes well-established genre tropes like creepy clowns and being buried alive, making it a fun distillation of elements from crowd pleasers by authors like R.L. Stine and Alvin Schwartz. Amelia and her family read White. Grab a flashlight and a blanket--this lives up to its titular claim. (Horror. 8-12)

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August 15, 2022
With an opening that states “DON’T READ THIS BOOK” in spindly scrawl, Poblocki (The Ghost of Graylock) sets the scene for this bone-chilling collection couched in an overarching narrative about a girl seeking to uncover the truth about her missing grandmother. Thirteen interconnected short stories follow bespectacled Amelia Turner-Ingersoll in the aftermath of her grandmother’s disappearance. As Amelia, her moms, and her younger brother Winter pack up her presumed dead grandmother’s house, Amelia finds what she assumes is an old library book titled Tales to Keep You Up at Night. When she attempts to return it, the librarian informs her that it’s not actually a library book. Despite the book’s warnings not to read it, Amelia settles down to do just that and, once finished, realizes that the library has long since closed, leaving her alone in the building. Ghosts, witches, and demon cars populate the book’s tales, and entries are told from varying perspectives, making for distinct narratives. The novel’s framework, which alternates between Amelia’s real life and the scary stories’ contents, slowly builds tension, intricately weaving classic and supernatural horror elements to deliver an immersive experience drenched in ominous atmosphere. Characters default to white. Ages 10–up.