Out to Get You: 13 Tales of Weirdness and Woe

by Josh Allen, Sarah J. Coleman (Illustrator)

Overview

Thirteen ordinary kids. Thirteen ordinary towns. Danger lurks around every corner!

"Wonderful and weird, compelling and unsettling." - Gary Schmidt, two-time Newbery Honor author

Get ready for a collection of thirteen short stories that will chill your bones, tingle your spine, and scare your pants off. Debut author Josh Allen masterfully concocts horror in the most innocent places, like R.L. Stine meets a modern Edgar Allan Poe. A stray kitten turns into a threatening follower. The street sign down the block starts taunting you. Even your own shadow is out to get you! Spooky things love hiding in plain sight.

The everyday world is full of sinister secrets and these page-turning stories show that there's darkness even where you least expect it. Readers will sleep with one eye open. . . .

A glow-in-the-dark cover and thirteen eerie full-page illustrations by award-winning artist Sarah J. Coleman accompany the tales in this frightful mashup that reads like a contemporary Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Don't miss the author and illustrator's other creepy collections: Once They See You and Only If You Dare.

A Junior Library Guild Selection
An ILA-CBC Children's Choice!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823443666
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	498,850
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Josh Allen checks under his bed before switching off the light each night. During the day, he teaches creative writing and literature at Brigham Young University-Idaho. His work has appeared in Cricket, Dialogue, Juxtapose, and other literary magazines. He lives in Idaho with his family.

Sarah Coleman was an early pioneer of hand lettering and has illustrated covers for many renowned books, including the 50th anniversary edition of To Kill a Mockingbird and Newbery Honor-winner Wolf Hollow. Her design clients range from Coca Cola and Starbucks to The New York Times. She lives in the UK.

Editorial Reviews

2019-05-22
A collection of curious incidents—13, naturally—for unsuspecting readers.

A friend mysteriously vanishes. A kid runs into the devil on the way to school. The figures on a street sign change places. A stain on the school cafeteria's floor is more than just a stain—it has a mouth. A straight-laced teacher gets a creative form of discipline for her "problematic" classroom-management style. Paper-towel dispensers produce ominous messages. Someone's missing marker is used to make art that brings to life a new invasive species. Even the shadows get bad ideas. For everything, there's a price or a consequence. Which kids can beat the odds and figure out a way for their lives to go back to normal? Or, is normal the real myth in this wondrously eerie world? Allen's debut is mostly plot-focused, a quick (but not too quick) relay race from story to story—the longest of which spans 15 pages. Mostly creepy instead of bone-chillingly terrifying, the collection's overall tone is more Twilight Zone than Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark. It's also a textbook example of how horror contextualizes social anxieties, particularly those relevant to school-aged youth. Coleman mixes hand lettering with scratchy, sketchy linework to create single- or double-page black-and-white illustrations that accentuate each story. With a lack of racial descriptors, the cast presumes a white default.

Tasty, bite-sized bizarreness for brave preteens. (Horror. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews

 "Josh Allen sets 13 creepy tales in a realm even redder in tooth and claw than the wilderness: middle school. Short and sharp, the stories in 'Out to Get You' mingle the ordinary with the supernatural in a way that will spook and gratify readers  . . .  Sarah J. Coleman’s illustrations add a touch of freakiness to quick-reading tales of 'weirdness and woe.'"—The Wall Street Journal

"Is normal the real myth in this wondrously eerie world? . . . Tasty, bite-sized bizarreness for brave preteens."—Kirkus Reviews

★ "A top-notch thrill-ride of creepy, crunchy horror. This collection belongs on every young horror shelf."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

★ "This haunting anthology will plunge young horror enthusiasts into their darkest dreams . . . Allen expertly weaves intricate, relatable details from the tween experience with elements of the supernatural to present readers with a baker's dozen of chilling tales" —Booklist, Starred Review

"Allen offers up thirteen tales of kids either meeting or escaping their supernaturally designed dooms in a collection ripe for sharing around the campfire or at a sleepover. The most effective tales blend the direct storytelling style of a good folktale with just the right amount of dark humor . . . Grab this and a flashlight, and call up your spookiest voice for a Halloween read aloud."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher