Once Upon a Time in a Dark and Scary Book

Contemporary American horror literature for children and young adults has two bold messages for readers: adults are untrustworthy, unreliable and often dangerous; and the monster always wins (as it must if there is to be a sequel).
Examining the young adult horror series and the religious horror series for children (Left Behind: The Kids) for the first time, and tracing the unstoppable monster to Seuss’s Cat in the Hat, this book sheds new light on the problematic message produced by the combination of marketing and books for contemporary American young readers.

K. Shryock Hood earned a PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and lives in Surprise, Arizona.

K. Shryock Hood
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 209
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7346-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3344-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 3
One. Background and Overview 11
Two. Fear as Pedagogy: Temperance Stories for Children 40
Three. Horror in the Basal Reader: The Cat in the Hat 59
Four. Horror and Adolescence 87
Five. The Religion of Horror, the Horror of Religion 120
Conclusion 154
Bibliography 165
Index 195