ROBERT D. SAN SOUCI: Part 2

Even though I ordered Short and Shivery volumes 2, 3 and 4, when I saw my local library had 2 and 4, I couldn't resist picking them up.

I was confused at first with More Short and Shivery, because the first half of the book was tales from my copy of Short and Shivery. Turns out I have some later edition that is the original first volume plus the first half of the second volume. So 45 tales instead of the usual 30 per book.

This one has some classics like "King of the Cats" and "The Golden Arm." I enjoyed the non-American tales, like Spain's "The Serpent Woman," Italy's "The Greedy Daughter" and "The Headrest" from Papua New Guinea. The notes in the back give nice insight into how San Souci crafted the tale as well as providing references for future reading.

My library didn't have the third volume, so I skipped ahead and read A Terrifying Taste of Short and Shivery, which is the fourth. Unfortunately, the awesome illustrations of Katherine Coville aren't in this volume, but the new illustrator didn't do too badly. His pieces have a vintage feel to them. This entire volume is filled with great tales. Only two are ones I'd read before. One of those was the "attacker in the backseat of the car" urban legend, but the other I'd only read once somewhere else.

I love kids' horror anthologies. I have since I picked up my first ones through the Scholastic order forms in elementary school. These definitely continue that tradition, but they have that wide assortment of global tales instead of retold urban legends, ones that are purely made up by the author, or just plain ghost stories. That's what makes this series so good. I've been reading tales like this for decades, yet San Souci found many I've never read before.

This book is a slightly different offering. I read this almost all the way through before work today and skipped a nap to keep reading. This one isn't folklore, but pure fiction tales, each with the haunted house theme. But they're great. They remind me a bit of the Midnight Library series, only these have a better mix of "things work out okay" along with the more unhappy ending ones.

"Tea House" was by far my favorite, but "The Lodge" and "Doghouse" were up there, too. All of them are good though. "Chimera House" and "Webs," the opening two tales were my least favorites, so if you pick this up, don't judge the entire book on those two. Keep reading. It's a quick read, so there's not much time lost if you give every story a chance.

The illustrations here were excellent, too. The lady in the upper left window has another appearance in the book and she's pretty badass. I thought the style looked familiar and it's Kelly Murphy, who did the Nathaniel Fludd: Beastologist series and Elise Broach's Masterpiece.

This book came out in 2010, so I fear there won't be any more in the series, but I'd love it if there were! (Oh, man, I just hopped on Wikipedia and I'm really sad to say there definitely won't be any more. Robert D. San Souci died on December 19th of last year. He also wrote Disney's Mulan! Never would have guessed that. But how sad! I'm glad I'm getting into his books now, so at least I can have more than just one and get a better taste of this awesome author.)

I'll be back whenever my other San Souci books arrive, and I'll cover the third Short and Shivery, plus the Dare to Be Scared series.