Spooky Indiana: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore as retold by S.E. Schlosser is a marvelous edition to the ever growing collection of stories about Hoosier hauntings and unexplained phenomenon. As the experienced author of several of the “Spooky” story collections published by Globe Pequot, Schlosser brings her expertise to this set of Hoosier tales. The book is divided into two sections: “Ghost Stories” and “Powers of Darkness and Light.” There is also a map of Indiana indicating the location of each of the stories.
Schlosser narrates the story in first person as if she’s telling the tales to a small group of people around candles or a campfire. Many of the tales are as old as time such as The Dance. In this story, a young lady’s date for a dance is late picking her up. The young lady tells her mother that she’d go to the dance with the devil himself if necessary. Suddenly there’s a knock at the door and a man stands there to take her to a dance. But he’s not her date and he has red eyes. Who is this man and where do they go? Then there’s the story of a person walking up to the top of the stairs, opening a bedroom door and seeing her sister’s head on the top of a bedpost. What happened here? In another tale, Schlosser states that it is odd that someone is walking around when “all the good folk” are already in bed. Clearly nothing good will happen.
I must complement the artist. He is trained in painting and printmaking. Each illustration is a fantastic medieval looking woodcut-like print with lots of dark areas. They are perfect for a collection of spooky stories. There’s an illustration for each story.
This book will complement well any collection of spooky themed books and is available at Bookmamas, 9 Johnson Ave.
