Night Terrors: Stories of Shadow and Substance

by Lois Duncan (Editor), Ellen Krieger (Editor), Alane Ferguson

Nighttime: a time of enveloping dark, eerie shadows and strange noises. . . . Eleven award-winning young adult authors share their views of the dark in this spellbinding collection of original short stories, each one distinct from the next. Young Adult.

The monkey's wedding / Joan Aiken
Satan's shadow / Alane Ferguson
The chosen / Madge Harrah
The bogey man / Annette Curtis Klause
Bearing Paul / Chris Lynch
The beautiful thing / Harry Mazer
The house on Buffalo Street / Norma Fox Mazer
The dark beast of death / Joan Lowery Nixon
Girl at the window / Richard Peck
The grind of an axe / Theodore Taylor
Moon kill / Patricia Windsor

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Young Adult, Mystery, Anthologies

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Lois Duncan (born Lois Duncan Steinmetz) was an American writer and novelist, known primarily for her books for children and young adults, in particular (and some times controversially considering her young readership) crime thrillers. Duncan's parents were the noted magazine photographers Lois Steinmetz and Joseph Janney Steinmetz. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Sarasota, Florida. Duncan started writing and submitting manuscripts to magazines at the age of ten, and when she was thirteen succeeded in selling her first story.

Duncan attended Duke University from 1952 to 1953 but dropped out, married, and started a family. During this time, she continued to write and publish magazine articles; over the course of her career, she has published more than 300 articles, in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest. After her first marriage, which produced three children, ended in divorce, Duncan moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to teach journalism at the University of New Mexico, where she also earned a BA in English in 1977. In 1965 she married Don Arquette, and had two more children with him.

Duncan was best known for her novels of suspense for teenagers. Some of her works have been adapted for the screen, the most famous example being the 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer, adapted from her novel of the same title. Other made-for-TV movies include Stranger with My Face, Killing Mr. Griffin, Don't Look Behind You, Summer of Fear and Gallows Hill.

In 1989 the youngest of Duncan's children, Kaitlyn Arquette, was murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, under suspicious circumstances. Who Killed My Daughter? relates the facts and conjecture about the still unsolved case.

Duncan's second book about her daughter's murder, ONE TO THE WOLVES: ON THE TRAIL OF A KILLER, picks up where the first book leaves off and contains all the new information Kait's family has uncovered from private investigation.

The 1971 children's book Hotel for Dogs was released as a theatrical movie in 2009, starring Emma Roberts. That book has now been republished by Scholastic along with two sequels, News for Dogs (2009) and Movie for Dogs (2010).

Duncan's Gothic suspense novel, DOWN A DARK HALL, is being filmed for the Big Screen and will probably be released in 2016.


Follow Lois on Twitter: http://twitter.com/duncanauthor
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?i...
http://www.kaitarquette.arquettes.com

Reviews

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ I’m very confused how this was marketed for young adults. Although there isn’t much graphic violence it deals with A LOT of very serious and adult themes and while I was expecting a silly, spooky time it was the opposite. It is a mixed bag of stories. Some stories I thought were pretty great like; The Bogeyman, An Axe to Grind, and The Chosen and there were others that were duds like The Dark Beast of Death… why Joan Lowery Nixon, a middle aged white woman at the time thought it would be a good idea to write about street gangs is baffling and it made for a terrible story. The Monkey’s Wedding was also strange and I can’t imagine most young adults enjoying that one.

I think Richard Peck was the only one that actually satisfied the brief. 😂

Trigger warnings for parental sexual abuse (not explicit but implied in Satan’s Shadow) and suicide in Bearing Paul

[Erica Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly spooky suspense vs. horror, and a bit of a random mix of stories at that; the only thing unifying the stories is the fact that they all include an element of darkness. Some of the subject matter is quite dark/mature for a YA audience, but I did enjoy quite a few of them, especially The Bogey Man by Annette Curtis Klause.

I did like that each story is followed by the authors explaining their inspiration behind what they wrote. Some of them pulled from their own dreams and nightmares.

But—unrelated lol—I could not get over author Harry Mazer casually mentioning how he was 21 when he met his then 15 year old wife. And then her story followed right after.

[Austin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many short story collections, this is a completely mixed bag - so I'll briefly share my thoughts and rating for each individual story.

Moon Kill by Patricia Windsor
A teenager's friend is murdered one night. Who is the killer, and will he strike again? A fairly straight-forward mystery that leaves some ambiguity at the end. I liked the writing of this one and the story managed to build some creepy atmosphere. ~ 3.5 / 5

Girl at the Window by Richard Peck
A boy (age, name, ? - went back to look and couldn't find either in the story, lol) and his mother move into a new home. A strange teen girl climbs through his bedroom window at night. Who is she and what does she want? Hard to say much else without giving anything away, but I liked this one. ~ 4 / 5

The Dark Beast of Death by Joan Lowery Nixon
A teen girl makes some bad choices and gets wrapped up in a gang. Of course, bad things happen and she ends up paying for her decisions. Didn't much care for this story, although it was a bit darker and more violent than the previous two. ~ 2 / 5

The Bogey Man by Annette Curtis Klause
A young boy is warned by his grandmother NOT to go in the basement because of the "Bogey Man". Of course, his curiosity gets the best of him, but what's lurking down there is far worse than the well-known mythical creature used to frighten children. I really like this one. Very brief, but has some darker implications to it and some might even find this one a bit offensive. A great, creepy story. ~ 4 / 5

The Beautiful Thing by Harry Mazer
Some trouble-making teens are bloodthirsty and want to get their hands on a gun. They do. Nothing else happens. *Yawn* ~ 1 / 5

The House on Buffalo Street by Norma Fox Mazer (Harry Mazer's wife)
A teen girl and her mother move into a new apartment. Said teenager starts hearing a strange voice coming from the landlord's apartment and starts imagining strange and frightening possibilities. Who does the voice belong to? Unfortunately, the big reveal isn't so exciting or thrilling. Still, enjoyed this one slightly more than her husband's story. ~ 2 / 5

Satan's Shadow by Alane Ferguson
A teenager's friend confesses to murder. Troubled by this information, she goes to the police, and then discovers that she may have made a mistake in doing so. I really dug this one! While the execution might not be perfect, this one has an interesting concept and raises the questions: When is it okay to kill? Is murder ever acceptable? Are there times when murder should be forgiven? A surprisingly dark and heavy story. Despite what the title may imply, there's no supernatural occurrences here. This is a grounded suspense/drama. But I loved it. Possibly my favorite of the collection. ~ 4 / 5

The Monkey's Wedding by Joan Aiken
I think this one was about a famous painting being fought over by various people. I don't know, this one barely held my interest. ~ 1 / 5

The Grind of an Axe by Theodore Taylor
A distant relative of viking descent comes to visit a family. He's mysterious and intimidating. Who is he really and what does he want with his distant relatives? Again, hard to tell much about these without spoilers. This one I didn't much care for. It was simply okay. ~ 2 / 5

The Chosen by Madge Harrah
I feel like I should have enjoyed this one way more than I did. It involves snakes, ancient gods/goddesses and evil rituals. Sounds awesome, right? Right. Well, whether it be the style of writing or the execution of the idea (perhaps a little of both), this one just didn't work for me. Still, not too bad. I liked the concept and the content of the story. ~ 2.5 / 5

Bearing Paul by Chris Lynch
This one is a bit unique. The story is told from the first-person perspective of a troubled teen ruminating over his recently deceased friend. The main character's "voice" offers a narration style that is both strange and a bit intriguing. He ponders over the possibility that maybe his friend isn't dead after all, when he thinks he sees him move during the open-casket funeral. What is going on with his dead friend, and what is going on inside of our protagonist's mind? This one is more psychological horror than the other stories and leaves some things open to interpretation, although the primary meaning seems clear. I really liked this one, although the narration was a bit repetitive at times. Possibly in contention with Satan's Shadow and Bogey Man as my favorite story of this collection. ~ 4 / 5

Overall this was a decent little collection of stories. They are all very brief and most are simplistic, but there is a nice variety here in terms of storytelling and content. I think most people would enjoy at least a couple of stories from this collection. Overall rating for the book is a 3 / 5.

[Cheryl]

Can't rate because I only read the Joan Aiken story "The Monkey's Wedding" (because this book is in my library system, and not The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories, which latter I do want to read even if I have to buy it at some point....)

Brilliant, not scary. And nothing to do with monkeys or weddings.* Not necessarily accessible to tweens or teens, to whom this book is marketed... but then, I don't want to underestimate young readers.

*http://www.word-detective.com/2011/09... says, in part:

"Back in 1998, Harvard linguist Bert Vaux posted a query about such sunshower terms to the Linguist email discussion list and, a month later, posted the remarkable results of his survey. “A monkeys’ wedding” is, for instance, a well-known term in South African English, apparently a direct translation of the Zulu “umshado wezinkawu.” In many languages (including Bulgarian, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese and English), however, the animal getting married is the fox. In Arabic, “the rats are getting married,” while in Hindi it’s “the jackals” that are the lucky couple. The Koreans speak of “the tiger” getting hitched."

[Teagan Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, this book does give off a scarier vibe than it actually is, from reading the description. Once reading it, it was not too scary. Though I will say that when I was done reading each story, I definitely felt a creepy sense from it. It's interesting to see how each of the original authors portrayed their individual styles in each short story. I know every reader has their own story preferences, though I highly recommend giving this book a try- if you don't like it, at least you have the extra information to refer to in the future.

[Kate Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read these out loud to a bunch of middle school students during the week of Halloween. There quite dark, maybe a bit too dark for 12-year-olds. As an adult though, they were definitely haunting and spooky. Not exactly the fun kind of scary story, but a good/short read for Halloween time.

[Sage R · Rating 4 out of 5]

S P O O K Y

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly disappointing! Only 2 out of the 11 stories were well written & fully fleshed out.

[Daniel B]

To begin, Lois Duncan's (edited not author) Night Terrors excited me and bore me with the mysteries.Well its hard to get a theme of the book because there is so many short stories from different authors so ill go off by one of my favorite stories. The short story "The Bogey Man" by Annette Curtis Klause theme in her story is that you should always listen to your elders they also have a good reason for not letting you do something because they cared and are worried not because a teen is too young its because they are worried about your safety.

Also another theme from another short stories is a mysterious story called "Girl at the window" by Richard Peck. This stories theme is to just mind your own business and never take the attic room. Joking aside the theme was to never follow strangers anywhere unknown at night it most likely leads to bad things which everyone sees coming. Also since a girl tells you to follow her in the night and just appears in your room I believe its safe to say don't and get her out.

Furthermore, the editors style of chosen this stories in my opinion weren't so great some of the stories just were absolutely dreadful to read with its boring mystery that you already solved and by its anticlimactic ending which is the biggest disappoint. But the editor did pick some really well thought out mysteries the you just can't stop reading and when you finally get to the end its a ending you didn't expect I love that about mysteries so i am really glad the majority of the stories in this book just do that. So if your looking for some good stories in this book pick the ones with interesting begins that how you'll know it will be good and if the details in the beginning don't bore you but hey that just my opinion read the story if you want.

Next,the authors did a really well job of making some of the characters actually seem real with their real life stresses and also about how they feel during the event is genuine feelings if I was in that predicament. But some of the characters you know are fake because they just make the stupidest decision. For example the protagonist hears a demonic growl and heads toward the noise honestly thats the most stupid thing ever in books and films but hey a character that just runs away from danger wouldn't be that great either so I don't hold it against them.

To continue,but the places were so non descriptive that i just didn't get the feeling of the sense i was in the story which what i feel in most stories I've read. A few authors did it but it wasn't great so I was just disappointed. Because i really enjoy get that feeling in books and gets me even more dragged into the story. I must admit one story in here called "Girl at the window" by Richard Peck was very detail in the setting which helped the story get even more interesting.

Most of all the stories are in first person of the main protagonist. This book is unique in a way of having a lot of short stories I really never read a book like this unless it was a child book I read as a kid. So i can't compare it too a book i've recently read but i can say this book is definitely worth a read if you into mysteries. This books contains many plots so its hard to say how of them are but some are really well thought out. Others i can't say i enjoyed them by they're boring details and boring ending well it was boring to me it may be different for you. Alot of these stories have such a suspenseful story that you just don't want to stop reading till the end.

In addition, I compare book to other books that have varies stories but this book is unique in having varies mysterious stories that I never read anything like this. I didn't think this book addressed any current events or issues. It more of a life lessons type of vibe. Also this book did connect to me on a person level on the moving topic that one of the characters in the stories experience.

In conclusion, I recommend this book to those that loves mysterious and fiction based stories. If you love trying to guess a end you didn't see coming or if you just love a suspenseful story this book is for you.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was boring

[The Transmuted Tree · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moon Kill, Patricia Windsor -1☆
Girl at the Window, Richard Peck -3☆
The Dark Beast of Death, Joan Lowery Nixon -2☆
The Bogey Man, Annette Curtis Klause-3☆
The Beautiful Thing, Harry Mazer -2☆
The House on Buffalo Street, Norma Fox Mazer -1☆
Satan's Shadow, Alane Ferguson -3☆
The Monkey's Wedding, Joan Aiken -1½☆
The Grind of an Ax, Theodore Taylor -2½☆
The Chosen, Madge Harrah -4☆
Bearing Paul, Chris Lynch -2☆

Most of these stories were awful. The House on Buffalo Street was so pointless & not scary in any way, not sure why it was chosen to be in this collection. But then, I'm not sure why a lot of these stories were chosen; they're just not good. I don't see kids being entertained by most of them. It started out with a particularly bad one--Moon Kill, which didn't even make sense to me. It was a sign of things to come. The Monkey's Wedding doesn't seem like a kid's story. It was boring, felt like it was written much earlier than the rest & didn't fit with the other stories (again, no idea why it was chosen for a kids' collection).
There were a few standouts, but even most of those weren't great. I would say The Chosen was the best. It had the elements you expect in a ya short story--interesting plot, suspense, mystery & relatable, likable characters.

[Graham Traylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read Night Terrors by Lois Duncan. This book is full of mysteries and surprising details. When I saw the books cover I thought it would scary. But after reading it, I thought it wasn't scary at all. There is multiple different short stories in this book. In the story, " The Dark Beast of Death", Mousey the mouse, was used to death. She had many friends and family died during her life. She had a sour taste about people and what they thought because of the deaths in her life. After all, he learned that there would be problems and death in life. She decided to move far away at the end of this story with little to no money. Most of these short stories were strange and had many mysteries. I wouldn't call this a book of terror at all. I would not recommend this book for people that enjoy scary books or movies. I was unhappy about the book and what I read.

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

By this book I know what they mean "don't judge a book by its cover" The title of this book gives the reader the impresion that is going to be a scary book, but to my surprise it came to be a book full of nonsense. What am trying to say is if you want to read a sacary book you don't want to read this one. The only thing is scary about this book that you might go to sleep and dream of unicorns!!!

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I looked through this anthology but I remember really enjoying the dark stories as a teen, snuggled up in bed late at night. Nothing too scary, or I wouldn't have been able to make it through.

[Lynecia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me scared to go to sleep when I was a kid!

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a lot of YA books to keep up with the tweens. Actually enjoyed this one. Some stories predictable for the older and wiser readers.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good book to stay up late and tell creepy stories and scare your friends to death with!

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars. I only read 7 of the 11 stories but they were so blah and lame I decided not to read any more.

[Anne Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for those of you who like short stories, as well as stories somewhat on the scary side. Some were predictable, but others I couldn't wait to see what happened!

[Braidey Pokarth]

its a
good book, man.