The folks at School Library Journal reviewed the first book in my new SCARY TALES series, Home Sweet Horror.
Did they like it?
Would I be posting this if they didn’t?
Um, no.
Money quote:
“The thrills and chills are delightfully spine-tingling in this truly terrifying tale. A great choice for reluctant readers.” — School Library Journal.
Note: All books in the series are available in Hardcover, Paperback, e-book, and carrier pigeon.
Illustrated by Iacopo Bruno.
Here’s the full deal, with thanks to reviewer Carol Hirsche for the kind words:
PRELLER, James. Home Sweet Horror. Bk. 1. illus. by Iacopo Bruno. 112p. (Scary Tales Series). Feiwel & Friends. 2013. Tr $14.99. ISBN 978-1-250-01886-1; pap. $5.99. ISBN 978-1-250-01887-8.
Gr 3-5–Liam and Kelly move with their father into a new home after their mother passes away. Eight-year-old Liam is immediately bothered by the creepy old house. He hears sounds and feels like he is being watched. No one else in his family senses anything until Kelly’s friend, Mitali, comes for a visit. The scariness escalates when Mitali tricks them into repeatedly saying “Bloody Mary” in front of the bathroom mirror. An evil spirit is summoned, and no one can deny that something is wrong in the house. Frightening events follow, their dog disappears, and a mysterious message appears on their refrigerator: “Get out now. Love, Mom.” The scratchy black-and-white illustrations enhance the mood of the story. The thrills and chills are delightfully spine-tingling in this truly terrifying tale. A great choice for reluctant readers.–Carol Hirsche, Provo City Library, UT
Just passing along an article by the very kind Sally Lodge, who phoned me a couple of weeks back. We chatted for a while and the result of that conversation was this article that appeared in a special edition of Publishers Weekly for Book Expo America (BEA).
And yes, while I was in NYC, I stood next to R.L. Stine and tried to hug him. Thanks to Kathryn Little for the snap!
He might not have loved it, hard to say. But actually, we spoke amiably in front of a video camera, so maybe a cool clip will come of it at some point down the road. But I digress!
Here’s the article:
The author of the Jigsaw Jones Mysteries ventures onto chilling turf in his latest series, Scary Tales, which premieres in July with Home Sweet Horror. James Preller calls the project, published by Feiwel and Friends, a “massive departure for me. I’ve always really adhered to realistic fiction. If someone had said that I would be writing a novel about zombies outside of a school—that happens in the third book—I would have said, ‘That’s ridiculous!’ But what’s interesting to me is how the other characters, ordinary people, respond to and interact with those zombies. With this series, I’m giving myself new freedom, and I’m really having fun with it.”
Preller’s inspiration for Scary Tales had several sources. His most recent fiction has been geared to older readers, including middle-grade novels Six Innings and Bystander, and Before You Go, his debut YA. “I hadn’t written anything for the second- and third-grade audience for a while, and I wanted to get back to that,” he says. “I hear from teachers and librarians that kids love scary books and that there isn’t much that is fresh and new in that area.”
The author’s fondness for old Twilight Zone episodes also fueled his imagination. “I love that the show spans a number of genres, from science fiction to gangster stories,” he says. “I want to do something similar with Scary Tales. I see these books existing on a broader canvas than just being scary. The series is not going to be just one ghost story after another. Each will be different, though all will have an intellectual twist at the end that will blow readers’ minds a little.”
Preller is hopeful that Scary Tales will provide kids with “a positive, fun reading experience” and will snare reluctant readers. “To attract reluctant readers who might need an easier read, a book can’t look babyish,” he observes. “But if it looks cool, they’ll pick it up. I am hoping the series will reach those readers, especially boys. That is a very important readership for me — reaching them is something I feel passionate about.”
Here’s a sweet letter from a sweet letter-writer named Bridget. And, oh yes, she included original artwork that I can add to my Fabulous Gallery of Fame.
My reply:
Dear Bridget,
Thank you so much for that lovely, well-written letter. I feel blessed to have you as a reader. Truly. You made my heart rise up into my throat there for a second. Forgive me, while I try to hack it out . . .
Cough, cough, COUGH . . . HACK, whomp, COUGH.
Ah, that’s better.
I’m sorry it’s taken a while for me to respond. That happens sometimes when readers write directly to the publisher, there’s a bit of lag time. Plus, you know what else happened to me? I had EAR SURGERY.
Yeah, that’s right. Yuck.
It’s left me a bit vertiginous.
Should I wait while you run off to find a dictionary? Oh, nevermind. I was just showing off my awesome vocabulary. It means that I’m dizzy.
I loved your artwork, thanks for that. You are awesomely talented.
I’m very glad you liked that particular book. It’s one of my favorites, too. I had fun with the substitute art teacher, whom I loosely modeled after Stevie Nicks, a singer from the band Fleetwood Mac. I like that she’s kind of New Agey, which is a nice way of calling her a “Space Cadet.”
I actually have a sister, Barbara, who is a little like that. Hey, you live in California — you must know the type.
Your letter was lovely, of course, but what’s this business about me being “ONE” of your favorite authors? You mean I’m not the only one?! Numero uno? The top banana?
(I’m pouting now, depressed.)
Seriously, I love so many different books. When people ask me about my favorite authors, I can never decide on just one. It’s just a long, long, long list. And I’m really happy, Bridget, to be on yours.
Oh yes, almost forgot. Your mom is incredible! You are lucky that she takes you to the library so often. Give her a squeeze for me.
P.P.S. I’ve included a video of Stevie Nicks below, so you get the idea. She was famous for wearing flowy dresses and twirling around a lot. Oh well. The 80’s were a confusing time for many of us!
I just got to see the illustrations for Book #2 in my upcoming SCARY TALES Series: I Scream, You Scream. Actually, what I saw was most of the art placed on the typeset pages, with some pages blank, art still-to-come. It’s exciting to see a book come together, especially one where the illustrations by Iacopo Bruno are such a big part of the overall appeal.
The good news, I’m in a sharing mood.
At about the middle of the story, after all hell has broken loose, two characters, Samantha and Andy, find themselves hiding in a cave. The way out was blocked. They had to explore the cave to find a new means of escape. Which gave me an idea — bats!
Here’s the scene from the manuscript:
The tight passageway opened up to a large cavern, with a ceiling at least fifteen feet high. “Wow,” Sam said. “Look at this place.”
Andy looked, as requested.
“But what’s that disgusting smell?” Sam complained.
She moved the beam to the rock floor. It was covered in some kind of thick, greenish slime. It smelled rank. Sam worked hard not to gag.
A steady trickle of droplets hit the rock floor. Plink, plink, plink. “Do you hear that?” Sam asked. “Could it be water falling from a stalactite?”
“No, not water,” Andy said. “I think it is called ‘guano.'”
“‘Guano’?’
“Bat droppings.”
Sam gulped. Bats. She hated bats.
Sam aimed the flashlight at the ceiling and stepped back in horror. The ceiling was alive. The roof of the cave was writhing, squirming, crawling with hundreds — no, thousands upon thousands — of bats. The bodies of mice, with human faces. Sam felt woozy, on the edge of panic.
This was worse than homework.
Way worse.
Oh, I should say another thing about my writing process here. When I realized that I was going to include bats in the story, I remembered that classic scene when Indiana Jones remarks, “Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?”
Part of the genius behind that scene was the script had previously established Indy’s fear of snakes. We learned it early in the movie and promptly put it away. So when he confronts the snakes, we know this isn’t just another obstacle for our hero. He’s facing one of his deepest fears.
Now, admittedly, my little book is operating on a simpler level. And I want to be careful about how scary to make this for my readers. So I went back to the first chapter and, while talking about Sam’s bravery (in the context of a thrill ride in an adventure park), I planted a seed:
Nothing frightened Sam Carver. Nothing, that is, except for dentists, bats, and homework. The usual things. Dentists, of course, with their fat fingers fumbling in your mouth. But bats creeped Sam out the most, with their leathery wings and tiny teeth and weird human faces.
I’m sure ideas for the cave scenes came from the light research I did on the topic. And, look, “research” is far too strong a word, implying more rigor than I applied. It was more a matter of casting about for inspiration by sorting through source material. I read about cave explorations and the bats of Bracken Cave in Texas, and tried to learn a little about bats in general. I even wandered over to Youtube, which can often be a spectacular research tool. This short, one-minute video really inspired me. BTW, pause on the video at 0:35, then look at the illustration below. I wonder if Bruno watched the same Youtube clip?
After their first bat discovery, Sam and Andy had to overcome their fears to figure out a way that the bats could help them escape the cave. They wake ’em up. Which led to this short paragraph:
It was amazing. Even beautiful, in a way. The bats flapped and flew to the far end of the cavern and spiraled up, and up, through a shaft of light.
I found another video that I particularly liked, this one a bit longer, which offered more information. I decided that Andy would be the character who knew something about bats. He was an expert, the way many boys his age can reel off facts about baseball, or trains, or most anything that’s captured their imagination. They absorb like sponges. After that, I had what I needed to write those brief scenes in the cave with Sam and Andy lost in the dark . . . with all those bats.
In Book #3 of my SCARY STORIES Series — launching this summer, so don’t make any plans — and I mean that, no plans whatsoever — I featured a whole mess of crows in the story. You know, when it comes to foreshadowing and a general air of ominousness, nothing beats a murder of crows.
We have Van Gogh to thank for that, his intimations of mortality in the great painting, “Wheat Field with Crows.”
And, of course, there’s Hitchcock. This is one of my favorite scenes in the history of film, the essence of suspense, the knot slowly tightening, the shots of the crows gathering, cut to Tippi Hedren smoking her cigarette unawares, and back and forth, back and forth, until we get that great shot of Tippi watching one crow in flight across the sky until it lands on the playground. And her eyes grow large. In the background all the while, children sing an American variation of a Scottish folktale, “Risseldy, Rosseldy.” Young, innocent voices. That’s cinematic perfection right there. I’ve watched it a dozen times.
So I stuck some crows into my story, black harbingers of doom!, and even included a small tribute to a scene from “The Birds.” (Kids these days are always clamoring for more allusions to 1960’s films. It’s just the kind of thing that young readers nowadays expect to find in their chapter books.)
Crows are basically gross, for the most part. But useful as nature’s trash collectors. They eat the road kill, smashed squirrels and flattened chipmunks, and I think we can all agree that we’re grateful for that. Thanks, crows!
Quick crow story:
My wife Lisa is the best mother in the world. She’s tied, actually, with a long list of other mothers, but she’s right there at the top, tied for first place. One Easter long ago, when Gavin (13) and Maggie (12) were probably 3 and 1 1/2, Lisa woke early in the morning to set up an Easter egg hunt. We had a nice, woodsy backyard at the time. Plastic eggs? What? Is that what you’re thinking? Oh, please. No, Lisa used actual hard-boiled eggs and hid them around the lawn. Under bushes and often right there in the middle of the lawn, since at the time the kids were young and not exactly the best Scotland Yard had to offer.
Later it was time for the egg hunt. And lo, there were no eggs. Or, at least, very few to be found.
What happened to them? Where’d they go? We didn’t know. So we set out an egg in the middle of the lawn, ducked back inside, and watched by the window. Within two minutes, a big black crow landed, grabbed the egg in its talons, and flew off for a hearty breakfast.
While thinking about crows, and researching them ever-so-slightly, I came across this, which is why I began this post in the first place.
Oh, and here’s the brief excerpt from SCARY TALES, Book #3. In this scene, three students are trapped inside a school, surrounded by zombies, or ghouls, or whatever creepy thing they are out there. It’s not good. For a variety of reasons — the best one being “for dramatic purposes” — Carter decides to go for help. He needs to quietly make his way two blocks through the night fog, avoid the zombies that seems to be aimlessly milling around, find his folks, get help, and save the day.
(I know, it’s sounds kind of dumb, but it’s a lot of fun.)
Here goes . . .
Carter stepped out into the mist with supreme calm. Cool as a lake. It was foggy, but he could still see about 30 feet in any direction. He gave a thumbs-up to the worried faces that stood vigil at the door.
It’s all good.
A crow landed near his foot, cawed noisily. Then another, and another. Carter stepped cautiously, not wishing to disturb the birds. He noticed a dark figure ahead and veered away from it.
CAW-CAW! Carter looked up to see a crow dive-bombing from above, talons out. The black bird hit Carter’s head at full force, wham, and tore into his scalp.
“Ow, shoot,” Carter cursed. He staggered a step, dazed, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Carter tenderly probed the injury with his fingers. His scalp was torn. Under a loose flap of skin, his flesh felt like raw hamburger. It was wet.
He checked his fingers. Blood. Lots of it.
Oooooaaaaannnn, oooooaaaaannnn.
The moans came, louder and louder, from every direction. As if the creatures were calling to each other. Now more shapes appeared in the distance, moving toward him. “It’s the blood,” Carter thought. “They smell it.”
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