Night in Funland and Other Stories

Scary Books, Kiddies!

 

Night in Funland and Other Stories from Literary Cavalcade.  Edited by Jerome Brondfield, 1968, Scholastic Book Services.  Cover: Margaret Howlett

      A lot of Boomers can thank TAB (the Teen-Age Book Club) and Scholastic Publishers for a lot of literary insight and exposure, along with some frights.  This anthology includes such classics as

·         “4 O’Clock,” by Price Day, which became a 1962 Twilight Zone episode;

·         “The Vertical Ladder,” by William Sansom, depicting with dreadful reality the inner thoughts of someone dared to do a stupid thing;

·         Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon”;

·         Shirley Jackson’s brilliant “One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts”;

·         and the stupefying “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets,” by Jack Finney—an absolute must-read for anybody consumed with work or deadlines

      Still, I must mock the back-cover blurb.  EVERYTHING is better with italics and an exclamation point, I guess.  By this standard, Winnie-the-Pooh might be summarized as:  A child’s stuffed animal comes to life in his imagination ... and leads an uncanny existence with imaginary companions of its own!

See you on Monday for the final week of Blog-o-Ween!