2019 is my year of free-range reading. If I see or hear about a book that interests me....I'm going to read it! Any genre. Any length. Any topic. Period.

I love scary books written for kids. Ghost stories. Creepy tales. Mysteries for kids. I love them all. It probably stems back to grade school book order forms. I used to love it when they handed out those awesome order forms and my parents would let me pick out a couple books. Waiting for them to arrive was a killer! Weeks would pass by (no Amazon Prime back then! ha!)....then the teacher would plunk a huge box on her desk and start passing out books ( I say her because I grew up in a small KS town in the 1970s....grade school teachers were women where I grew up. I didn't have a male teacher until 5th grade. That seems so weird today!)! I would rush home after school and disappear into my room to read! Usually I was allowed to order 2 or 3 titles and most of the time they were scary stories, strange but true tales, or an adventure story. To this day, when I see a book like Real Life Scary Places, I have to read it! It always brings back fond memories of laying across my bed -- my entire bedroom was done in shades of purple...even the carpet was purple) -- reading new paperbacks that transported me to spooky cemeteries, haunted houses and mysterious far-off places.

Real Life Scary Places collects 11 stories about creepy places around the world. There is a nice variety of stories ranging from experiences in a haunted house to restless dead in a burial crypt. Each story is only a few pages long and all of them are appropriate for middle grade students. The tales are a bit spooky but not overly scary. There are black and white illustrations throughout.

This book is OOP, but used copies are readily available online. In a classroom setting, this book could have some fun uses -- writing prompts for a creative writing assignment, reading aloud, supplementary reading at Halloween, etc. Reluctant readers who like ghost stories or true tales might really enjoy reading this book. I know I did!

Tracey Dils is the author of many children's books in a variety of subjects plus some books on how to write stories for children. I'm definitely going to read and review more of her books! Some of them are OOP, but many of her books are readily available at any bookseller. ( )