Even as a light-hearted series aimed at young audiences, Bailey School Kids still manages to be unnerving from time to time.
WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
- Mrs. Jeepers. Even though she really knows how to keep her students in line, she's mostly harmless, but the fact that she may or may not be a vampire is unnerving to think about. Perhaps her scariest moment is that it's never clarified just what she did to Eddie at the end of book one. He tries to pass it off as just a scolding in subsequent books, but it's clear he's hiding something, and he's clearly shaken whenever it's brought up.
- The atmosphere of the second book, Werewolves Don't Go to Summer Camp, is particularly nerve-wracking, especially when the kids are out in the middle of the woods on a hiking trip and get stalked by a very creepy shadowy figure who might be a transformed Mr. Jenkins and has distinct canine ears and fur.
- In "Bigfoot Doesn't Square Dance" Mr. Squash chases the kids off the mountain for unexplained reasons and the kids are saved at the last second by the bus. In the last chapter, the park ranger confirms she's never heard of Mr. Squash and the last settler moved away years ago. Not only do the readers never learn just who Mr. Squash really is, it's one of the few times the monster being real would have been the less scary option as opposed to a crazy homeless man who was trying to kill the kids.
- Scout from "Ghouls Don't Scoop Ice Cream." Granted, she's visually not much more than your (stereo)typical goth and never directly antagonizes the protagonists (she even joins in on their fun at the end), but she's described as having red eyes and talking in a slow, serious voice.
- The illustrations, both cover and interior, are sometimes unnervingly realistic. For example, one picture
◊ from "Aliens Don't Wear Braces," as well as the cover art◊. - The idea that vampires, aliens and what have you may actually exist can be Paranoia Fuel for young readers.
- The plot of "Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips" is disturbing in a more realistic sense. Eddie's great aunt Mathilda has been sick in bed for days, if not weeks, and her health deteriorates to the point she's found passed out and thought to be dead by Eddie and his friends. They've no choice but to call her an ambulance, but Mathilda says they can't because she doesn't have money for the hospital. While the kids are able to discover the money that belonged to Mathilda's dead husband Jasper, which not only covers her hospital stay but also lets her get her house fixed, it's still terrifying to note Mathilda could've actually died because she apparently doesn't have health insurance to cover a hospital visit. And the fact this is still a problem people are struggling with today, Mathilda was very, very lucky.
- The illustrations for this book have a more sinister air to them due to the kids trying to figure out if the Monster of the Week is Eddie's dead great uncle Jasper. Howie thinks he sees Jasper up in the attic near the beginning, but this is dismissed as a shadow. Two more illustrations show an actual shadow, shaped like a man wearing a hat, lurking in the background that no one else notices. There's even a two page spread of the kids and Aunt Mathilda in her smoke-filled kitchen after her dinner burns, with a silhouette of a man standing right behind Liza and Howie in the smoke emitting from the burnt food. While in this case, Jasper is genuinely benign and trying to help his wife by leading the kids to his hidden money, it doesn't change the fact that his presence in the artwork is unsettling and only vaguely human compared to the other supposed monsters in the series.
- Jasper's silhouettes also bear a very eerie similarity to another hat wearing, ghostly figure.
- The illustrations for this book have a more sinister air to them due to the kids trying to figure out if the Monster of the Week is Eddie's dead great uncle Jasper. Howie thinks he sees Jasper up in the attic near the beginning, but this is dismissed as a shadow. Two more illustrations show an actual shadow, shaped like a man wearing a hat, lurking in the background that no one else notices. There's even a two page spread of the kids and Aunt Mathilda in her smoke-filled kitchen after her dinner burns, with a silhouette of a man standing right behind Liza and Howie in the smoke emitting from the burnt food. While in this case, Jasper is genuinely benign and trying to help his wife by leading the kids to his hidden money, it doesn't change the fact that his presence in the artwork is unsettling and only vaguely human compared to the other supposed monsters in the series.
