Witch's Brew-Hitchcock

This is a great collection of scary stories for intermediate-level readers. The stories are very much in the tradition of short horror stories, with clean and crisp narratives, surprise twists, and sometimes-dark endings. Robert Bloch and Shirley Jackson make particularly good contributions, and give the book just enough of a hint of the literary as to make the collection rise slightly above its pulp roots. The stories themselves deal with everything from a deal with the devil to a wishing well that allows people to work dark magic upon their fellow citizens. They are, as a group, very imaginative, and the caliber of the story-telling is pretty consistently high. Sometimes a collection of so-called scary stories, especially when it's being targeted to younger readers, is nothing more than a quick way to make a buck by jamming the work of some company hacks between two covers. But this collection, taken from a variety of sources, really seems to have been thoughtfully assembled with the reader in hand. This series testifies to the name of Alfred Hitchcock as a hallmark of quality among horror and mystery writing. The introduction from the master himself is very brief, and doesn't add much to the book, but the book stands on its own.