Vivian Vande Velde
Author of Books for Young People
Awards & Honors
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VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers 2006
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YALSA's Teens' Top Ten Books (2007)
Review
"Not too gory, not too gruesome, but thirteen short stories that are scary enough to raise goose bumps and send shivers down the spine. "
—Children's Literature
More Stuff
Author visit/cemetery field trip with Laurie Thurston (stooping, in lower right hand corner) and her class in Mt. Hope Cemetery:
Foreign Edition
All Hallow's Eve
-the Danish version
All Hallows' Eve
Ages: 12 and up
Publisher: Harcourt
Book Description:
Thirteen tales of Halloween horrors, including ghosts, vampires, and pranks gone awry.
Where do you GET those ideas?
I started with one Halloween-themed short story, "Morgan Roehmar's Boys," which I wrote for the anthology Gothic! (The idea for that came after being on a haunted hay ride and thinking that was a lovely setting for a scary story--especially if you didn't know what was spooky stage-setting and what, if anything, might be real.)
That one story made me want to write a collection of stories for teens, all centered on the spookiest night of the year.
The idea for "Cemetery Field Trip" came after I did an author visit for a class of kids and the class was held--really!--in Rochester's Mt. Hope cemetery. In real life, nothing bad happened there to any of the students. At least... not that I know of. (By the way, I'd set another of my short stories in the same cemetery, "For Love of Him," which was published in Being Dead.)
"Only on All Hallows Eve" was inspired by an All Saints Day sermon.
With "Best Friends," I wanted to tell a story from alternating viewpoints--and each time I switched, I wanted to pull the rug out from under you and show you that everything you thought you knew from the previous sections was wrong.
The origin of "MARIAN" should be clear to anyone who has ever been in a car with a GPS. Those things seem to have minds of their own.
Excerpt
Don't be shy. Don't be afraid. Come on in. Granny doesn't bite. See, Granny has hardly any teeth left. I couldn't bite if I wanted to.
Are you nervous because it's All Hallows' Eve? This is a spooky night. The dead walk, witches convene, a door opens between the world of the seen and the world of the unseen.
And sometimes that door lets all sorts of evil onto the earth.
No, no, don't leave. I'm just telling stories. Silly old granny that I am. The night is cold and dark, and you've walked so far to get here, and I just want to help you.
Eye of newt
Mandrake root
Tear of pity from a heartless soul...
Granny is good at helping people. No one has ever complained.
Let me guess what you need...