These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Big Lipped Alligator Moment: Some consider the illustration for "Oh Susannah!" to qualify as one. The story is supposed to be about a student's roommate being killed, while the illustration is . . . not.
Actually, though it's a bit oblique as it's done more symbolically than most other illustrations, the picture for Oh Susannah! actually goes with the original version of the story where the protagonist wakes up and finds either the killer or the roommate's decapicated corpse in a rocking chair and her head on the wall.
Complete Monster: Samuel Blunt from "Wonderful Sausage." Killing and eating children, puppies, and kittens easily catapults him to this level of villainy.
Critical Research Failure: Many of the stories are listed in Schwart's notes as folktales when they actually have direct literary antecedents.
For example, "The Drum" is misattributed as a folktale in Schwartz's notes in the original edition; it's actually a barely modified version of "The New Mother" from the 19th-century English author Lucy Clifford's collection, Anyhow Stories.
"The Wendigo" doesn't much resemble the folkloric monster; that's because it's based on Algernon Blackwood's quite different take on the legend in his 1910 short story of the same name.
Fridge Horror: These are typically classified as children's books.
Ho Yay: Thomas and Alfred, the two farmers from "Harold."
Also O'Liery and O'Riley, the two dead men from "Ba-Room", exactly why and how the two men ended up dead in the same bed is never explained.
Narm: The girl in "The Girl Who Stood on a Grave" agrees to a bet to stand on a grave for a dollar. Yeah, you read that right. Just one dollar.
This is possibly due to our current inflation—barely a few decades ago, a dollar was a lot of money.
But the girl ended up dying, so that dollar wasn't worth it anyway.
In the movie version of "The Hog," because of the angle, Arthur looks like he's wearing a dress instead of pants.
Nausea Fuel: "The Hearse Song" describes in detail what will happen to your corpse when you die.
Newer Than They Think: "The Wendigo" is not based on the original Native American folklore, but rather on an Algernon Blackwood story first published in 1910.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The books are being re-released to commemorate the 30th anniversary... with new illustrations. Many people who grew up being terrified by these books and their original, creepy illustrations are not happy.
And adding insult to injury for those who were never able to obtain personal copies of the originals, they have been taken out of print (including the more recent anniversary editions) and online prices are being inflated.
Ugly Cute: The illustration of the pale woman in "The Dream" .
Uncanny Valley: The illustrations never leave it. Even relatively innocuous ones like "The Babysitter" are extremely unnerving.
Even when something perfectly normal is drawn, it still manages to look really creepy.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The books are usually categorized as children's books. The illustrations, especially the one for "The Dream", leave us wondering why.
