Amelia is annoyed because her Moms are cleaning out grandma's house because she's been missing for a year. Amelia doesn't want to lose grandma or forget about her so she hides out in the attic and discovers a worn book with the warning DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. Amelia thinks this is a joke by her grandma and so begins reading. What follows are some truly creepy and scary tales about different people, but they all seem connected. Every time Amelia pauses in the stories she realizes that the world around her has altered slightly. As she reaches the end, she has to make an agreement that's going to change everything forever.
Some of the stories were absolutely terrifying, and left a queasy feeling in my stomach. The imagery was great, and I loved Amelia's character. I think the last few pages got a little preachy about the spreading of ideas, but it was also true so I can overlook that. Truly a wonderfully horrible middle grade scary book. On par with Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark.

This was, as the title suggests, quite a creepy book. I always wonder, as I start a new children's/middle grade horror, how scary will this book actually be? I can genuinely say several of the stories within are very high on the scary/creepy scale (especially the fishing story...yikes)! This will definitely be a recommendation for readers that really want to be scared. The book was framed as a story-within-a-story, which I think worked really well here. It was incredibly atmospheric, and I could feel the character's tension rising throughout. I had a fun time reading this one, and was left with a lingering creeped out factor.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

For anyone who has loved Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, author Dan Poblocki has one-upped the original and written a terrifying collection of stories that are all interconnected in subtle ways. This was a book-within-a-book concept. I really liked how the stories were all part of a book being read by the main character, and there were dark and twisty things happening in the book as well as beyond the book.

I have a particular patron who loves horror, and I have been looking for scary novels to share with her. This one will be at the top of my list as soon as I can get a copy for my library!

A very fun and quite creepy middle grade horror novel. Amelia's grandmother has been missing for a year, so her family is finally clearing out the old house. Up in the attic, Amelia finds "Tales to Keep You Up at Night" and can't help but start reading it. It's full of short scary stories that become more and more sinister as she reads.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It reminded me of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, with a nice thru line to connect the tales. It has some truly scary scenes and an interesting mystery to follow (what happened to Amelia's grandmother?) Great middlegrade horror.

These tales certainly did keep me up at night!! (Mostly to just keep reading!) I was genuinely surprised by how scary and unnerving many of them were! We have many requests from the middle grades for more horror stories and I am so happy that we have purchased this title because they are definitely going to get what they want.

Even though they were very creepy and unsettling, they weren't outright awful or gory like adult horror--it was very much psychological and the way things are described really do send a tingle down your spine. I've read many children's horror stories from when I was a kid and as a library professional now, and most are fairly lukewarm and more on the gothic side--not sincerely scary. The stories in this were, especially for children (including teens).

The integration of them with the main story was nicely done, though I felt the ending was a tiny bit anticlimactic. However, it also felt logical and realistic, so I can't dismiss it entirely just because it doesn't entirely follow the typical formula. It was well-written and I appreciated the moral. While readers would probably get more out of the individual stories, the main story is just as engaging. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who wants more horror, adults too.

This middle grade novel (with connected short stories) is the right amount of scary for the audience. Amelia finds a book of scary stories while cleaning out her grandmother’s attic. Everyone says her grandmother has died, but she has a feeling there is something more to find out. The stories scare her, especially as she starts to see connections between them and to the town. Amelia wants to find out if the stories are true, and if she can do something to stop the forces behind them. The way the pieces begin to connect for Amelia and the reader makes the stories creepier as they go along.

This is a fun middle grade collection of scary stories, revolving around a girl who gets a book of scary stories, and weird things start happening as she reads them. I could see my boys enjoying this one!
It definitely feels more like a middle grade book for that age group, and doesn’t really transcend to all ages, but it’s creative and entertaining.