The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural

These 10 spine-tinglers range from straight-up ghost stories to eerie narratives. The tales in this winner of the 1993 Coretta Scott King Award depict racism, haunting and vengeance in a manner that can be read out loud around a campfire or savored privately, offering middle readers (fourth through eighth graders) thoughtful exposure to important, though frightening, historical themes. One tale, set in the segregated South of the 1940s, tells of a black man's ghost avenging his murder by a white klansman. McKissack's prose is smooth and understated, and its sense of foreboding is powerfully enhanced by Brian Pinkney's black-and-white scratch board illustrations.