The upsurge in horror fiction produced specifically for children in the past four years is a phenomenon. In terms of sales, titles and sheer cultural penetration, the American Robert Lawrence Stine must be accounted one of the most successful authors in the entire horror genre. For the 'Goosebumps', 'Hair-Raisers' and 'Creepers', the 'Spooksville' and 'Graveyard School' books and their like are horror, openly, self-consciously and successfully. They identify with the genre, they use its icons; they use horror as a selling point and it is working. Throughout Australia and the United States, bookshops and libraries everywhere have a lurid, green and dripping section that never existed before.

The look of the books is very important; it identifies them as part of the trend. They are bright, glossy and dramatic. On the covers, something is always happening, and that something is usually the monster, displayed and central. But then, with titles like Return of the Mummy, suspense was always going to be a bit of a moot point. The iconography is familiar; the mummy, a ghost, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, an executioner with an axe, a giant spider, the Bat Attack. In fact, with each one carefully numbered, they look like trading cards; the 'Goosebumps' have started coming in boxed sets, numbers 1-4, 5-8 and so on. They have no internal illustrations; the exception is the series which in fact contradicts every statement made so far, the Gary Crew edited 'After Dark'. These covers are dark and suggestive, like the titles, of places which conceal secrets; the Bad Places, The Bent-Back Bridge, The Barn, The Well.

These days, the concerns of people that something may be not quite trustworthy tend to be expressed in terms of desensitising children, and indeed anyone else, to violence. As we have seen, the grue of the books comes under close scrutiny from educators and authors alike. The 'Goosebumps' may be considered alright compared to some, because they are not too 'horrible'. However, children's horror also attracts another specific kind of concern, expressed famously in a report made by the American Library Association in 1989. 'Any title with the word 'witch' in it may be replacing abortion, evolution and secular humanism as the focal point of conflict.' During that phase, the most notorious targets of the activists concerned were The Wizard of Oz, general collections of fairy tales, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all in some way considered to be exposing children to the 'occult'. Occult in this sense must be taken as referring to some actual canon of Satanic material, equivalent to the Christian biblical canon. Ghosts, inhuman entities and any form of magic all count as references. It was this view that was at the base, along with a specific Christian-affiliated lobby group, of the Australian attempts, in the state of New South Wales, to ban a group of 'strange games' for children in 1992. A young boy had suffered pattern nightmares for two months, seeing apparitions in his bedroom and saying that he couldn't help drawing 'evil things', after playing Nightmare, the video boardgame (now known as Atmosphere -- 'A Couple of Cowboys' & Village Roadshow). Heroquest and the ubiquitous Dungeons and Dragons were also associated. The then state member for Londonderry, Mr Paul Gibson, made a formal request for a Parliamentary inquiry after 'receiving letters from concerned parents around Australia', which was never taken up. So this concern pre-existed the present craze, but has fed into it, as demonstrated by the 'top ten' list for 1995, of 'People For the American Way', who are actually an anti-censorship watchdog group who keep annual tabs on which books come under the most pressure for their removal from the United States school system. In 1995, number one was an extremely popular anthology, Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, by Alvin Schwartz. More Scary Stories, and Scary Stories III: Tales To Chill Your Bones also made the list, (outing 'Goosebumps' from somewhere at least). The reason given was their 'supernatural' content.

These books have not existed before. The children reading them are not the ones who will read the original Dracula and Frankenstein at age eleven, in secrecy if necessary, then discover Lovecraft or Stephen King and go on from there. Perhaps it is just a passing craze; it will die down, the readers will go onto other pastimes, now considering supernatural horror to be childish. And in the playground, something else will arise which will be questioned with total seriousness and the best of intentions.

In any case, it should not surprise us that some very fine writing is presently coming out of such a vibrant and complex cultural idea as scaring the children.

Source : http://www.tabula-rasa.info