SOLVED. Children's scary short story collection by famous authors + their kids. First story: spider apocalypse. [s]

[Nadia]

Read this book about 10 years ago, was relatively recent at the time - 2000s? late 1990s? In English, probably American. Brown cover?

This book was a short-story collection for kids. The most notable part was that each story was written as a collaboration between a well-known children's horror author and their kid. Unfortunately I don't remember any of the authors, but I recognized some of the names at the time.

The first story was the only one that legitimately scared me. It was set in a world where giant deadly spiders were everywhere. The main character is a little boy who tries sneaking out of the house, which is barricaded so that the spiders can't get in. He makes it onto the street, empty and covered with webs, which he has to dodge. He gets pretty far but then falls into a spider's trap. As he's about to get eaten, he wakes up - surprise! it was all a dream ........ but then realizes he's actually stuck in a web and a spider is about to eat him. Not afraid of spiders, but this freaked me out.

[[on hiatus] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars]

Great Writers and Kids Write Spooky Stories? Looks like it has some good writers in it, as well.

[Nadia]

Wow, that was fast! Definitely the book I was looking for :) and it looks like the story I was thinking of was "Itsy bitsy spider"!

Thanks, werewolf :)