Favorite Scary Stories of American Children

＂A book that will serve its purpose well, especially if used in conjunction with other spooky story collections.＂ -School Library Journal

Everybody loves a scary story and nobody more than kids, but these tales--collected from kids themselves - are particular favorites. These traditional scary stories are the ones that kids ask for the most. Children love to hear how Wylie outwitted the terrible Hairy Man, how Skunnee Wundee and an unexpected friend got the best of the fierce Stone Giant.

Shivery stories of vengeful ghosts, spooky stories of witches and spirits, and giggly stories that turn fear into fun are part of this collection. Symbols precede each story to indicate the most appropriate age group. The stories in this multicultural collection come from the Ozark Mountains, the desert Southwest, even Japan and Hawaii, as well Native American tribal stories, Yiddish tales, and even Laotian legends.

Judy Dockery Young Bio: Judy was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, June 25, 1949, to a family that settled Oklahoma before statehood. The Dockreys are of Irish-American Indian extraction, and Judy’s mother is a German-Scot-Irish, which gave Judy a varied heritage in a pioneering family. She attended two-room Star School in the Verdigris River bottom outside Wagoner, Oklahoma, and when the family moved to Rescue, Missouri in 1960, she attended and was graduated from Miller High School. Attending Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield from 1967-1972 she was graduated with a BA in Speech and Theater. Accepted to the prestigious Dallas Theatre Center in Dallas, Texas, in 1972, she did her master’s work in Children’s Theater at this (former) branch of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Following her father’s nearly fatal heart attack in 1974, Judy returned to help out at the family farm in 1975-1976 and also earned her lifetime Missouri teaching certificate at S.M.S.U. Two years teaching high school speech and drama at Republic, Missouri, ended when Judy took a position as a character actress and storyteller at Silver Dollar City theme park outside Branson. Judy has worked at Silver Dollar City as the resident storyteller since 1978. Her work began to gain national recognition with the hundreds of thousands of guests who saw her performances, and with the publication of her first three audiocassettes of storytelling. Nine books of Storytelling followed. 2015 is Judy’s 38th year at the theme park. She continues to tell stories five days a week at the Homestead, a hundred-seventy-year-old log cabin. Married March 27, 1982, to actor-teacher Richard Alan Young, the two have gone on to publish nine books with August House Publishers of Little Rock, Arkansas. Seven nationally-released audio-cassettes featuring Judy and Richard have also been released by August House. And the couple have produced four video tapes. Judy’s live performances have led to appearances at the Exchange Place stage of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, the main stages at the Texas Storytelling Festival and San Antonio’s Tellabration. In 1996 she appeared as one of the featured tellers at the Texas Storytelling Festival. Many tours, including performances under the auspices of the state humanities councils, have carried her storytelling across the Midwest and Southwest. Richard Young Bio: Richard Young and Judy Dockery Young have co-authored nine books. Richard was born in Huntsville Texas, the son of a Scots-English-Seneca-Indian father/college educator and a French-English mother from a pioneering Texas Family, the Farines of the La Reunion settlement outside Dallas that disbanded in 1857. Richard’s father was at one time a Spanish teacher, as was his uncle Homer, and Richard visited Mexico frequently from early childhood. A two-year assignment in Ecuador for the U.S. State Department took the family to Quito, high in the Andes when he was a boy. Returning to the United States, Richard grew up as a Texan with a wide prairie upbringing and a Hispanic flair.Moving to Siloam Springs, Arkansas when his father assumed a teaching position at a small evangelical university. Richard earned his BA in Romance Languages and an MA in the Humanities. Taking a teaching position during the teacher shortage after he graduated, Richard became a high school teacher where he learned to engage young people with stories.