If You Want to Scare Yourself (book - 1984)

Written by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg
Illustrations by Helga Spiess
Translated from the German language by Rene Vera Cafiero

The target audience for this book may be for children in grades 3-5 but I still sit and enjoy this book every year around the fall season. At 106 pages with plenty of excellent, effective illustrations, it is easy for me to get through this entire book in one sitting.

The story centers around a boy named Freddy who is on bed rest from an injured leg and he is bored from not having anything to do. His mother offers to tell him a scary story and after that he begs his father and grandmother to do the same. There are five stories in all, the last one being a story that Freddy makes up himself.

The first story in this somewhat anthology book is called Barbara. Freddy’s mother tells of when she was going house hunting a few years back and went to look at an old house that resembled a castle. When she knocks on the door a pale ghostly girl named Barbara answers the door and lets her into the house, giving her a tour and showing off what was once her room. When Barbara insists that this room be used for a child, Freddy’s mother tells her that it’s none of her business how they decide on rooms and Barbara gets angry. Freddy’s mother hears commotion in the other room and hopes that it's the little girl's parents and thankfully it is. She speaks to Barbara’s parents about how Barbara let her in and showed her around the house. The parents look upset and tell her that it was impossible because Barbara was dead. She died four weeks prior of pneumonia from sleeping in the bed by the window.

The second story, called Harry, is told by Freddy’s father about how when he was younger he needed a tutor for math. A boy from his class named Harry offers to assist him in his studies and tells him they must meet somewhere other than his house since it’s no good. Harry is described in the story as having pale, unhealthy skin, wears the same black clothes every day, unkempt hair, and a peculiar smell. Freddy’s father agrees to Harry’s suggestion of tutoring and they begin studying together at his house. Every day after their studies, Freddy’s father passes out from exhaustion on the desk where they are working. One time he even finds drops of blood on his paper. Over time, Freddy’s father becomes anemic and is bedridden for a week. Freddy’s father returns to school and notices Harry has been missing. He gets Harry’s address and goes to his apartment building to see how he is. He doesn’t find a doorbell with Harry’s last name so he starts ringing doorbells to see if anyone there can tell him where Harry is, or if he moved. He finally finds someone who knew Harry and explained how he and his family haven’t lived there in 25 years and how his mother and sister died of chlorosis…another word for anemia. As you can see from the pic and the brief description of the story, it's safe to say this is a vampire tale...!

The Child under the Cloak is the third story told by Freddy’s grandmother and it’s another ghost child story. This time, Freddy’s grandmother is shopping at the market when she notices a barefoot child wearing nothing but a yellow raincoat in the freezing cold. She can’t tell if the child is a little boy or a girl, but she can tell that the child is sickly looking with a pale, ashen face. She tells the child that it should be wearing shoes and clothes or else it could catch its death. The child is moved by how concerned she is and this drives Freddy’s grandmother away. She looks back and sees the cloak on the ground and feels terrible that she shoved the child away from her. She goes back and offers to take the child somewhere warm and give it hot cocoa. When she picks up the cloak, nothing is under it. A passerby asks if she was related to the child that had just been hit by a car earlier that day. Freddy’s grandmother held the coat next to her and explains how it felt like the body of a warm child still inhabited the cloak.

Personally, the fourth story is my favorite. Wolfgang- I guess you could imagine what this is about. Yep! A werewolf. Freddy’s mother, Sabina, tells of when she was a child visiting her Aunt Matilda who worked as a nanny at a mansion. Before Sabina arrives, Aunt Matilda sends a letter telling her that the family is strange and the boy Wolfgang is peculiar and to not be afraid, but to watch out for him. Young Sabina is concerned and curious what Wolfgang will be like when she arrives. When she does arrive at the mansion, the butler lets her in and tells her to wait as her Aunt is busy tending to Wolfgang. This is where Angela Sommer-Bodenburg reigns in her storytelling because in these moments you feel tense wondering what is going to happen and the descriptions of what Sabina hears makes you feel uneasy to be her, including a scream and a crash. When Aunt Matilda comes down she shows Sabina her apartment and tells her that they will be eating dinner with the family – meaning that she will be meeting the infamous Wolfgang.

One of my favorite parts of the story is when they gather around the table for dinner. This part provides the illustration which was the cover of the library book I used to check out as a kid; it’s Wolfgang holding a bloody steak up to his mouth with his sharp claws on his hairy hands. All Wolfgang wants are bloody steaks as Freddy’s mother describes as being unappetizing they are so bloody. When they tell him he can’t have any more steak until he cuts his nails he runs from the table and knocks his chair over. Later that night Sabina hears howling. Aunt Matilda tells her that it’s Wolfgang. She gets up to go check on him and finds that he slashed the maid with his nails and jumped out the window and is out in the night looking for meat.

The last story And They Went over the Hill is Freddy’s story that he wrote about a group of children basically being neglected by their parents at a party, giving the impression that the parents are usually always neglectful. They are over-eating junk food, getting sick from it, and making paper lanterns all the while the parents aren't paying attention to anything going on. At the end of the story, the children try and show their parents what they have created with their lanterns but they are too busy socializing to bother looking at what their kids have done. The children gather in a group and start whispering, and the adults take note. The kids form a line and light their lanterns before going over the hill…never to be seen again. The town searches and searches, but the children were gone.

All of these stories are fun but there is enough creepiness to make the book stand out from other children’s books. Again, though the targeted audience is young, I think that any adult, especially those who love classic horror movies, would pick this book up and enjoy every page. The stories are unique and stick with you long after reading them. It’s definitely mandatory that I mention Helga Spiess’ black and white illustrations which help make this book an eerie read. Her drawings put me in mind of Stephen Gammell’s work but she has her own style which brings this already amazing book to a whole other level. If it seems that I’m trying to hype this book up then maybe it’s because I am. You can get it for cheap on Amazon so do it NOW before the month of October is over because this is the perfect time of year to curl up and read this with a mug of hot cocoa or a pumpkin spice latte. I love books and stories like this because as a great line in this very book states, “With a scary story you can’t ask about the how and why or it loses its magic…”

-Vanessa Nocera

Here are some alternate covers of the book - the first being a Spanish version gets my vote for being the best! 

This next cover is fun and is the same as the book that I originally bought in the '90s when I finally found it at the school's book sale when I was a kid, but it isn't the best cover.