The Hunsberger Scary Scale: Help Children Select Just-Right Horror

The Hunsberger Scary Scale has helped me overcome my fear of recommending the wrong horror book to a child. A very rational fear given that I made it through my entire childhood in the 1990s without reading a single Goosebumps book. (Unlike ALSC blogger Chelsey Roos, who wrote a piece on why kids love horror.) “Safe Spaces in Scary Books” at #alaac25 I learned about The Hunsberger Scary Scale this past summer at an #alaac25 session titled “Safe Spaces in Scary Books.” Taylor Hunsberger, Children’s Senior Librarian at Brooklyn Public Library’s East Flatbush Branch, moderated the session. Presenters included authors Tracey Baptiste and Ellen Oh, as well as Torrance Public Library Youth Services Librarian Judy Neeb. Baptiste began the session with an explanation of why she chooses not to describe horror as “dark.” “While it’s typical to use the word ‘dark’ to describe things that are scary or menacing, because dark people are…
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