Hot off the heels of news that Guillermo Del Toro is producing a film based on the nostalgic children’s books Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a documentary about the books is in the works. It has been in production for two years, is armed with an official trailer, and is now trying to finish in 2016.
The upcoming documentary is backed by the family of the late author, the trailer featuring both his wife and grandson. The doc will explore subjects such as the banning of children’s books in America, the history of gothic children’s literature, and the large following these books have amassed over the years. Crowdfunded via IndieGoGo, it arrives just after news that CBS Films has hired Del Toro to develop a feature film based on a script by John August.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, authored by Alvin Schwartz and originally illustrated by Stephen Gammell, is a three-book anthology of folk tales and urban legends that are particularly notable as being among the most frequently banned in all of children’s literature.
“The first recorded challenge we have of it is in 1988,” said Kristin Pekoll, Assistant Director for American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “And it has been challenged almost every year since then.” Pekoll’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has been compiling and publishing data on banned and challenged books for over two decades. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was the #1 most challenged book of the 1990s and remained in the top ten in the following decade.
The documentary, which will provide rich and informative interviews with Pekoll, Schwartz family members, and prominent folklorists and children’s book scholars, will argue that the books are an important cultural touchstone, providing far more than pure scares for children.
And the documentary will get an inside look at the creators of the books. “[Alvin] was the number one banned book author,” says Barbara Schwartz, wife of the late author, “and he just loved that.”
The Indiegogo campaign can be found at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scary-stories with a goal of $39,000. The official trailer was released three months ago and has since accumulated over 135,000 views.
To peruse the campaign page and the pages of the website, it is easy to see how one could fill a documentary with such a topic.
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