Scary Stories to Read When It's Dark is a Reading Rainbow anthology published by SeaStar books (subsequent editions were printed by Scholastic) in 2000. The book, which features short tales from Arnold Lobel, Alvin Schwartz, Jane O'Connor, Lane Smith, Laura Cecil, Judith Bauer Stamper and Betsy Byars, is known for its silly endings and lighter take on scary children's tales. While every one of the stories begins in a scary context, the endings all turn out funny, positive, surprising or endearing in some way. Unlike the already-then-popular anthology Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Read When It's Dark was a tamer variant of the same basic idea, packaged for younger children.
Stories included:
- "Shivers" by Arnold Lobel
- "The Green Ribbon" by Alvin Schwartz
- "Halloween" by Jane O'Connor
- "Henry's Bedtime Story" by Lane Smith
- "The Dark Wood" by Laura Cecil
- "Bloody Fingers" by Judith Bauer Stamper
- "Something At the Window" by Betsy Byars
The book contains examples of the following tropes:
- Amphibian at Large: And a ghost amphibian at that.
- Big Brother Bully: Henry tells his little brother, Holly, a cruel bedtime story about a monster that actually has poor Holly crying visible tears in the illustrations.
- Bloodier and Gorier: All of the stories are very innocent, until the story "Bloody Fingers" arises which features a very detailed set of illustrations depicting a creepy old man with blood all over his fingers chasing a little girl through a forest... while chanting repeatedly, "bloody fingers". The little girl does the only thing that any probable Final Girl would do - she smiles and offers the guy a band-aid to help stop the bleeding.
- Burp of Finality: Danny in "Halloween" by Jane O'Connor.
- Crying Wolf: A boy's little brother in one story is constantly complaining about the shadow of a very tall man peering into the window of their shared bedroom. The older brother assures the boy that the window is up far too high, so tall that only a "basketball player" could see into it by standing there. Trope averted when an illustration actually does show a male basketball player standing on tiptoe and peering into the window.
- Ghastly Ghost: Arnold Lobel creates quite the spooky amphibian one in his contribution to the book.
- Losing Your Head: In "The Green Ribbon" by Alvin Schwartz (yes, that Alvin Schwartz, which explains why this story is more particularly gruesome than the others), a husband unties a green ribbon from his wife's neck, which somehow causes her head to fall off.
- Product Placement: The anthology contains a Frog & Toad story by Arnold Lobel, to get young readers more interested in reading (and buying) Frog & Toad books.
- Scary Black Man: To be fair, in this case the basketball player peeping into boys' bedroom windows is pretty creepy, but his race is beside the point.
- Uncanny Valley: One of the stories in the anthology ("Henry's Bedtime Story" by Lane Smith) features magazine clippings fashioned into collage art illustrations. There is something innately unsettling about these realistic photographs and textures being fashioned into the pieces of a ghost story (but also strangely adorable, too).
- Urban Legends: Many of the stories are urban legends, including the tales "The Green Ribbon" and "Bloody Fingers".
