# Books that traumatized you as a child **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200 "2009-02-24T15:42:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/181 "2009-02-27T17:35:02Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Pretty sure this story is included in [Ghosts and More Ghosts](http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-More-Robert-Arthur/dp/0394811925/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235597117&sr=8-8), which I mentioned upthread. Can’t find a title right now though. > > The story in the book that always affected me most was the one about the radio show host who had himself chained to a bed in a spooky old house to give atmosphere to the scary story he was telling about the faceless monster from the swamps. Only he failed to take into account the power of belief created by all those radio listeners… I remember all those stories- the dragon one, the reporter one, the Rose Crystal Bell etc etc. What a great book… ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/182 "2009-02-27T17:55:26Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > I didn’t know anyone else even KNEW about this book! I recently purchased an old copy and read it to my (then 7-year-old) son… I have the same aversion to firecrackers. As much as the book taught good lessons, and educated me about guide dogs, it scared the snot out of me. Man, I loved _Follow My Leader_; it inspired me a great deal. In fact, a dear friend of mine is now working as a Braille transcriber in part because of her having read _Follow_. I’m frankly rather surprised the firecracker-in-the-face bit didn’t traumatize me, as I was so easily spooked. But I’ve never had any personal hands-on experience with firecrackers so maybe I just didn’t think it would ever affect me. > [@](#): > > On another note, I recall reading _Are you there, God, it’s me, Margaret_ by Judy Blume in 4th grade, in an effort to gain insight into the female species. I had a vision of Margaret rubbing a hairy brown mole on her thigh, which was her 'special place." I was eventually able to gain better insight and a keener sense of anatomy, but I can still recall the puzzlement and horror of that image. Um. Oh. My. God. I am … really, really, really embarrassed. I adored _Are You There_ (I even re-read it fairly recently out of curiosity to see if it would hold up for new generations) and _to this day_ I never realized what “special place” meant. I vividly remember admiring the concept of having some sort of meditating method that would calm you, and so decided that I’d gently rub a spot on my wrist. Didn’t work for some reason. So vivid is this memory that I guess when re-reading as an adult I _still_ didn’t “get” what Margaret was doing. What a nimrod I am. So … is it possible to be traumatized retroactively? 'Cause this just did it to me! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/183 "2009-02-27T18:45:12Z")
> [@loafish](#): > > When I was about six, my older sister read me a story from her English class (she was in 6th grade) about a book collector that finds a one-of-a-kind book in a shop and takes it home where he starts examining it and taking notes about it. One of the pages has a picture of a skinny dragon sitting on a pile of skulls… Yup. That’s the one I referred to in post 134. None of the seven Amazon reviews mention that story by name, but I remember it well. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/184 "2009-02-27T19:15:49Z")
Along similar lines, I once read a story about a kid who finds an old dusty jigsaw puzzle in one of those omnipresent curio shops that are always around in stories. Anyway, there’s no picture on the box cover, so he has to just figure out what the picture is as he’s putting it together. As he assembles the pieces, he realizes that the puzzle shows the very room he’s sitting in… and shows he, himself, sitting there putting the puzzle together. As he fits the last pieces in, it shows a hideous monster looking in the window at him. And he turns his head to look at the window in real life… and there it is. :eek: This story gave me serious trouble with darkened windows at night for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/185 "2009-02-27T20:16:01Z")
Oh, man, I recognize a ton of these books, although few of them affected me as powerfully as they did some others. > [@salinqmind](#): > > There were also several books of Alfred Hitchcock’s stories-for-young-readers anthologies. Most were pretty lame. But there was one story that has haunted me to this day - involves a “garbage monster” that was chased out of town and buried in a field…and a young girl? woman? - at the end lay down on the ground where it was buried and could hear it deep below in the earth. I was going to mention a very similar story in another Hitchcock anthology. I don’t remember the name of the book; I found a fragment of it in a box in the attic, so I only ever got to read a few of the stories. One of them, though, (named _It_ or _The Thing_ or _Heap_ or some such involved a critter similar to the one you mention, but it was made of muck or something. I remember it was terribly strong and very curious – a bad combination in that I seem to remember it’s pulling someone into pieces in order to learn what was inside – and it ended up sitting in a creek watching in puzzlement as bits of it were washed away. That story gave me the creeps big-time. > [@Lissla\_Lissar](#): > > Did anyone else read John Bellairs when they were kids? _The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt_, _The Curse of the Sorcerer’s Skull_, and (oh, kill me now) _The Lamp From the Warlock’s Tomb_? The only Bellairs book I ever read was the excellent _The Face in the Frost_, surely one of the best books ever written. It was fun and quirky, but it did have one particularly creepy part where one of the protagonists (they were named Prospero and Roger Bacon!) came upon an item which was pulsing, but the pulses were slowing as time went by. He knew there had been a spell placed on it to the effect, “As this stops, so let his heart stop.” Very cool. > [@Quint](#): > > I was often freaked out by books I read as a child, but the honour of “first book to really scare me” goes to Beatrix Potter’s **The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin** which my mother read to me before I was three. I remember being scared to death of Mr. MacGregor of _Peter Rabbit_ fame. RR ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/186 "2009-02-27T21:49:16Z")
> [@RiverRunner](#): > > I was going to mention a very similar story in another Hitchcock anthology. I don’t remember the name of the book; I found a fragment of it in a box in the attic, so I only ever got to read a few of the stories. One of them, though, (named _It_ or _The Thing_ or _Heap_ or some such involved a critter similar to the one you mention, but it was made of muck or something. I remember it was terribly strong and very curious – a bad combination in that I seem to remember it’s pulling someone into pieces in order to learn what was inside – and it ended up sitting in a creek watching in puzzlement as bits of it were washed away. That story gave me the creeps big-time. Didn’t the early **Mad** magazine do a parody of this? Also, [Heap (comics) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(comics)) ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/187 "2009-02-27T22:02:19Z")
Everyone I went to school with loved the Wayside School books, but the only one I had, **Sideways Stories from Wayside School** , really, really creeped me out. To this day it creeps me out in a very strange way. It’s just unsettling. The story about the ice cream that tasted like each individual? The story about how there was no floor…13, maybe? And this kid ran up and down the stairs, unable to get to this floor? And the story about the kid who was wearing about fifteen coats and turned out to be a rat? Everything about that book scared me in some deep, horrifying way. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/188 "2009-02-28T00:24:17Z")
The sea tank scene in John Wyndham’s \*\*The Kraken Wakes \*\*gave me nightmares as a child. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/189 "2009-02-28T00:56:38Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > a man, whose name was I think Maurice, had such an enormous penis that he damaged his lover’s internal organs with it. Ugh. Did he at least speak of the pompatus of love? ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/190 "2009-02-28T06:13:15Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > On another note, I recall reading _Are you there, God, it’s me, Margaret_ by Judy Blume in 4th grade, in an effort to gain insight into the female species. I had a vision of Margaret rubbing a hairy brown mole on her thigh, which was her 'special place." I was eventually able to gain better insight and a keener sense of anatomy, but I can still recall the puzzlement and horror of that image. I thought _Deenie_ was the one in which she had a “special place” to rub. I don’t remember any of that in the Margaret book. There was menstruation and bras, and a girl who got a reputation as a slut just because she developed early, but no masturbation as far as I remember. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/191 "2009-02-28T06:25:40Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Ugh. Did he at least speak of the pompatus of love? If he did, I’m blocking it out! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/192 "2009-02-28T11:58:20Z")
When I was 9 or 10, I read an anthology of horror stories from the school library. I have no idea what the name of it was, but two of the stories freaked me out so badly I was in my late 20s before I could start sleeping with the light off. (To be fair, it probably wasn’t just those two stories - I dove headfirst into horror/ghost stories at a young age and still haven’t completely emerged, but those stories began it.) One of them involves a boy who finds a strange skeleton at a construction site. It’s baby-sized, with a beaked skull, and he takes it home and hides it in his basement with a vague idea of trying to sell it to the university. Of course the thing comes alive that night and eats his dog (turns out the construction site was actually an Indian burial ground, reinforcing my theory that one should never let an Indian handle a shovel - no good ever comes of it). The last scene in the story describes the boy standing at the top of the basement stairs as the creature looks up at him, the light glinting off the fresh blood on its beak - and then the basement door swings shut and locks. The second story begins with a boy in the Olde Worlde who has just been to a neighbor’s house to pick out a puppy. He’s trying to get home before dark but he doesn’t make it and the Rich Landowner’s dogs start chasing him. He drops his puppy while trying to climb a tree and the Landowner’s dogs kill it, vividly. That part of the story had me in tears - I was highly indignant at the idea that rich guy and his mean dogs could do whatever they wanted, and no one could do anything about it. It wasn’t _fair_. Ah, youth. ---
**Author:** ![Nikki\_Tikki\_Tavi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3da27b/32.png) [@Nikki\_Tikki\_Tavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nikki_Tikki_Tavi)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/193 "2009-03-01T15:33:37Z")
I started reading my mom’s Stephen King books when I was quite young, and most of them scared the heck out of me. I remember taking them out of my room before bed so they wouldn’t be near me. The story that springs to mind, though, is from a book I borrowed from the in-class bookshelf in 6th grade. It was a collection of short stories, but I only remember one of them. In it, a woman is raped then stabbed to death (possibly by a serial killer?) in the courtyard of her apartment building while all of her neighbors peer out their windows and watch. The book cover was purple and there was a crow on it. It was called Nightbird Stories or Nighthawk Stories, something like that? I’ve looked for it with no luck so maybe I’m getting the title wrong. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/194 "2009-03-01T16:37:20Z")
> [@Nikki\_Tikki\_Tavi](#): > > I started reading my mom’s Stephen King books when I was quite young, and most of them scared the heck out of me. I remember taking them out of my room before bed so they wouldn’t be near me. > > The story that springs to mind, though, is from a book I borrowed from the in-class bookshelf in 6th grade. It was a collection of short stories, but I only remember one of them. In it, a woman is raped then stabbed to death (possibly by a serial killer?) in the courtyard of her apartment building while all of her neighbors peer out their windows and watch. The book cover was purple and there was a crow on it. It was called Nightbird Stories or Nighthawk Stories, something like that? I’ve looked for it with no luck so maybe I’m getting the title wrong. I believe you are thinking of _Deathbird Stories_ by Harlan Ellison, although if I remember correctly, this was one of the forewords to a story, and not the actual story itself. He was relating the true story of Kitty Genovese, who was killed in NYC much as you describe. ---
**Author:** ![Nikki\_Tikki\_Tavi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3da27b/32.png) [@Nikki\_Tikki\_Tavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nikki_Tikki_Tavi)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/195 "2009-03-01T16:58:32Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I believe you are thinking of _Deathbird Stories_ by Harlan Ellison, although if I remember correctly, this was one of the forewords to a story, and not the actual story itself. He was relating the true story of Kitty Genovese, who was killed in NYC much as you describe. I think that’s it! I’m tempted to see if I can find a copy to see if it creeps me out as much as it did back in 6th grade. I’m glad I didn’t know it was a true story then, I never would have been able to sleep! Yeep. Who hasn’t had a nightmare like that? Being attacked in full view of bystanders, no one coming to help… ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/196 "2009-03-01T18:07:50Z")
Early 70’s, I think I was eight years old, before Stephen King became a famous author, my mother had a paperback anthology of H.P. Lovecraft short stories on her bookshelf. I was sick of children’s books and very much into Dracula, werewolves, Zombies, the classic Universal and Hammer horror films they broadcast on _Creature Feature_ every Friday night. I asked my mother if that book was any good and she told me “You can’t read it. You’re too young. It will give you nightmares”. “The hell I can’t”, I said to myself. I was very proud of the fact that I read at a high school level at the time. So the next night when she goes out with her friends, I quietly take the book off the shelf, slip into my bedroom and read **The Dunwich Horror**. It was probably because Lovecraft gave his towns real-sounding names in real states I thought this was a true story. My grandfather had a 2-story victorian summer house on the other side of the bluff from the Missippi river, in a wooded hollow with ramshackle estates on either side of it, so I knew about dilapidated buildings like the one the Wateley family lived in. This was supernatural horror of a different kind, my first exposure to the occult. It scared the piss out of me, but I couldn’t stop reading. **At The Mountains of Madness** was in the same book. By time I was finished that one I doubted the Holy Trinity. I saw the human species as living a precarious existence, obliviously surrounded by powerful beings that are indifferent to our fate in a vast Universe. It was my first exposure to the idea that we all are small and meaningless in the universe. I didn’t have nightmares from that book, but it changed me. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/197 "2009-03-01T19:28:22Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > Early 70’s, I think I was eight years old, before Stephen King became a famous author, my mother had a paperback anthology of H.P. Lovecraft short stories on her bookshelf. I was sick of children’s books and very much into Dracula, werewolves, Zombies, the classic Universal and Hammer horror films they broadcast on _Creature Feature_ every Friday night. I asked my mother if that book was any good and she told me “You can’t read it. You’re too young. It will give you nightmares”. > > “The hell I can’t”, I said to myself. I was very proud of the fact that I read at a high school level at the time. So the next night when she goes out with her friends, I quietly take the book off the shelf, slip into my bedroom and read **The Dunwich Horror**. > > It was probably because Lovecraft gave his towns real-sounding names in real states I thought this was a true story. My grandfather had a 2-story victorian summer house on the other side of the bluff from the Missippi river, in a wooded hollow with ramshackle estates on either side of it, so I knew about dilapidated buildings like the one the Wateley family lived in. This was supernatural horror of a different kind, my first exposure to the occult. It scared the piss out of me, but I couldn’t stop reading. **At The Mountains of Madness** was in the same book. By time I was finished that one I doubted the Holy Trinity. I saw the human species as living a precarious existence, obliviously surrounded by powerful beings that are indifferent to our fate in a vast Universe. It was my first exposure to the idea that we all are small and meaningless in the universe. > > I didn’t have nightmares from that book, but it changed me. Did you ever see the Dean Stockwell film of THE DUNWICH HORROR? I was maybe ten at the most & my parents took my brother & I to see it at the drive-in. Soon after I found an anthology of classic horror stories that included it. Good times! But for my theology, I’d stick with that in Bram Stoker’s DRACULA or Stephen King’s THE STAND. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/198 "2009-03-01T20:42:06Z")
> [@Lucky\_13](#): > > I thought _Deenie_ was the one in which she had a “special place” to rub. I don’t remember any of that in the Margaret book. There was menstruation and bras, and a girl who got a reputation as a slut just because she developed early, but no masturbation as far as I remember. I think you are correct… I did have a crush on a girl with a back brace and read Deenie as a show of good faith… in fact, [the Wiki entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deenie) even refers to masturbation. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/199 "2009-03-01T21:18:25Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Did you ever see the Dean Stockwell film of THE DUNWICH HORROR? I was maybe ten at the most & my parents took my brother & I to see it at the drive-in. Soon after I found an anthology of classic horror stories that included it. Good times! > > But for my theology, I’d stick with that in Bram Stoker’s DRACULA or Stephen King’s THE STAND. No, I didn’t know they made a film of it. I think I’ll have to see it now. I tried reading _Dracula_ around the same time but only made it through the first chapter. I don’t know why I didn’t pursue it; the shaving scene grabbed my attention. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200/200 "2009-03-01T22:45:05Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > No, I didn’t know they made a film of it. I think I’ll have to see it now. > > I tried reading _Dracula_ around the same time but only made it through the first chapter. I don’t know why I didn’t pursue it; the shaving scene grabbed my attention. OK, I gotta warn you, the 1970 version has Dean Stockwell as an aloof, oddly handsome non-deformed Wilbur Whately and Sandra Dee as the ingenue he seduces to continue the family line/breeding experiment. Ed Begley Sr is Professor Armitage. Corman-produced SFX are Whateley’s “twin brother”. And Sam Jaffe has his last role as Wilbur’s grandfather “Wizard Whateley”. I loved it & still do. A Lovecraft purist probably would not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-traumatized-you-as-a-child/487200.md?page=11)