The Bookworm Sez by Terri Schlinchenmeyer 

 

Haunted Stuff by Stacey Graham

c.2014, Llewellyn

$15.99/$18.50 Canada

240 pages

America’s Most Haunted by Theresa Argie and Eric Olsen

c.2014, Berkeley

$16/$18 Canada

341 pages

The days of plastic masks are over for you. No more of Mom’s makeshift monster costumes; no more department store mass-produced everybody’s-wearing-its. You dress yourself on Halloween because you know you create a better costume than anybody, a fact of which you’re proud.

You might know makeup, but there are scares you just can’t make up. You’ll find them in Haunted Stuff by Stacey Graham and America’s Most Haunted by Theresa Argie and Eric Olsen.

Those old Halloween decorations you brought home last year are going to scare the dickens out of the neighborhood kids. You can’t wait to put them up – but maybe you should. In Haunted Stuff, you’ll see why you should wait, maybe forever. Castoff belongings, you see, could be thick with things you can’t see.

It’s fun to find a bargain, for instance, but Graham says many secondhand items – including clothing, toys, furniture and collectibles – may’ve had owners that are still quite attached to them. Bring the item home, she says, and you could be inviting a spirit into your house.

That could be charming … or it could be terrorizing.

Once-loved dolls, for instance, could be embedded with the spirit of the child who played with them, but that’s not all. She includes stories of demon dolls that caused mayhem (at best) and insanity (or worse). And whatever you do, don’t think badly about those toys because – well, they’ll know.

And if you’re a brave soul and things don’t scare you, let’s see how you do with places.

In America’s Most Haunted you’ll learn about paranormal homes, hotels and hotspots you can actually visit.

In Ohio, you could meet a ghost from the long-ago past who may haunt in tandem with a ghost from the 1990s. In West Virginia, tour a former “lunatic asylum” that might harbor Civil War spirits.

In Colorado, take a room-by-tunnel trip in a hotel where the scenery is beautiful and the screamery is boooo-tiful. In California, you can visit a ship that one Hollywood star admitted has an “otherworldly” feel about it.

What’s nice about this book is that it’s so thorough. The authors tell you where you’ll have the best likelihood of spotting or hearing something eerie; whether it can be explained by natural reasons; and phone numbers, addresses and tips on going there to see for yourself.

Halloween: fun and games, or frights and ghouls? How about both? I personally find the cover of Haunted Stuff to be deliciously disturbing. Happily, the inside matches the outside, but beware: Read it, and you’ll think twice about bargain-hunting forever.

And if a good old-fashioned ghost story completes your Halloween, then America’s Most Haunted is your (spooky) book. Just remember, as you’re reading: It’s all chillingly true.

Bear in mind these hair-raising paperbacks are not for the kiddies. In fact, the cover of one of them is nightmarish. Haunted Stuff and America’s Most Haunted are great to have, but be sure to keep them out of little hands because sometimes, Halloween isn’t for kids – and neither are these books.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Readers with questions may write to Terri in care of this publication.