Tales of Terror (1975, Ida Chittum)

Tales of Terror (1975, by Ida Chittum, illustrated by Franz Altschuler), is a collection of ghost and monster stories told and set in the mysterious backwood hills of the Ozarks.

Similar enough in design, tone, and size to be considered belonging in series with three other children's horror anthology books published by Rand McNally in the 1970s (the other titles being Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures, Horror Tales and Monster Tales), these stories definitely have their own unique flavor that sets them apart.


The beautiful, yet vaguely disturbing illustrations perfectly capture the tone of these tales of drowned children, restless ghosts, magic spells and malevolent wildlife.


The complete contents are (all stories by Ida Chittum):

By The Author (an introduction)
The House the Dovers Didn't Move Into
Vision of Roses
Uncle Ned Kunkle
The Twins
The Snipe Hunt
The Yellow Cat
Giant
The Feather Reader
The Woman Who Turned To Paper
Sod Miller's Money
Print On The Window
The Haunted Well
The Special Gift
Bring Back My Teeth
The Lovers
The Cruel Girl
The Twisting Wind
Courtland Wethers And The Pit

I'll let the illustrations below speak for themselves and won't summarize any stories here. But I will share a passage from one story, The Cruel Girl, which haunted me long after reading it for its unflinching depiction of childhood evil:

No hurt was too small for her to overlook. She mocked every word of a
first-grader who stuttered, until he quivered at the very sight of the schoolhouse door.

Any child feared showing a liking for any living thing, as Emmadean was sure to get hold of it and put an end to the creature in some unspeakable, slow way. New, helpless puppies were thrown headfirst into thorn bushes. Kittens were sunk in the creek, revived, and sunk again.

Dark stuff. As a child, that image of puppies being thrown into thorn bushes buried itself into my subconscience and stayed there long after I'd forgotten that it came from this book.