The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales Of The Supernatural

The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales Of The Supernatural - Patricia C. McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Coretta Scott King Award Winner
Random House
ISBN: 0-679-81863-4

My rating: 4 out of 5

This is a great book to read around Halloween. The stories are relatively short and make for pretty good read-alouds. They all take place in the southern U.S. and are a little different than other "traditional" ghost stories.

The illustrations in this books are pretty good. I believe that the illustrator used a technique called scratching to create these. He painted a layer of black on a layer of white and used a very sharp point to scratch away the paint to make a white line. In my opinion, this technique can be hard to master, mainly because you cannot erase what you have done, but I think Mr. Pinkney has done a good job.

The only thing I would caution about this book is that some of the stories involve the Klan and slavery. If the children have not been taught about these things, I would be hesitant in selecting this book.

All in all, I belive that "The Dark Thirty" is a great book to read aloud - especially in late October.