Very bad idea for a picture book?

Go to the library and look at the recent picture books there to get an idea of how scary you can get.

Hanzel and Gretel scared me to death back in the day.. We need more of those I say go for it!

Lots of kids love to be scared. Most of their parents, however, do not love to deal with the kids after they've been scared. So a scary PB would have to be done very, very carefully. The Grimms' fairy tales tend to be cleaned up quite a bit for the modern audience.

That's not to say it can't be done. Only that it has to be done carefully. As Kitty Pryde already advised: Go to the library and read about 200 books, only ones that have been published in the last 10 years. That will answer a lot of your questions.

Anonyouth said:

Thanks. And your story Darling Boys & the Raver Faeries of Kensington Gardens, sounds like something I would want to read. Is it a short story?

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It's a young adult novel that is not quite finished yet

Two recent scary(ish) picture books: YUMMY by Lucy Cousins and JIM by Hilaire Belloc and Mini Grey. YUMMY is a collection of fairy tales which are a little scary - there are child-eating wolves etc - but Cousins' art makes it work. JIM is a good old cautionary tale in which a boy is eaten by a lion, but the black humour is pitched just right and the art is gorgeous.

Go for it. My 3rd graders are obsessed with Goosebumps, but they are above most of their reading levels, so I think they would really like scary-ish picture books.