Teen Read Week 2004 What makes you shiver and shake? Ghosts? Spiders? Knife-edge suspense? All of these, and more, can be found in books for teens. Some are classics, such as Edgar Allan Poe’s masterful tales of suspense and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Others, such as Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ In the Forests of the Night and Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak series, are relative newcomers to the genre.

Suspense creeps me out. That buildup of tension where you just know something is about to happen. Books like Acceleration by Grahame McNamee, where the evil is a stalking human serial killer, or the short stories in Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde, where you never know what is around the corner or in the shadows. I have to read these during the day with all the lights on.

What books keep you up at night, jumping at the sounds outside your door or window? Which authors have you checking under your bed or in your closet before turning out the lights? During Teen Read Week, October 17-23, public libraries will be celebrating the teen horror genre. Come by and pick up some scary book—I dare you!