Middle Grade or YA Horror Anthology collection from the 2000s/early 2010s with black & white illustrations.

UNSOLVED

I've been trying to find this book again for YEARS. It was a horror anthology collection that I read as a kid, with very short stories (I remember around 1-3 pages) that each had surreal black & white illustrations. I had it on my kindle fire around 2011-2012-ish so it would've been published around that time or before. It is NOT any of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, or any of the Dare to Be Scared books.

I'm fairly certain it was a middle grade book, though it might have veered more into YA territory. It was definitely not an adult collection though.

I believe the cover was black and white as well, and it was filled entirely by a creepy face with black-rimmed eyes. It was a distinctly human face, but had kind of a ghost/skeleton vibe to it (hopefully that makes sense?). There's a slim possibility that this was just one of the illustrations included in the book instead of the cover, but I also saw the cover pretty regularly on my kindle library and I'm almost certain that this was it.

I can remember three of the featured stories, although there were definitely a lot more. I'd estimate maybe around 30 total:

  • The first story in the entire collection was about El Cucuy. The protagonist is a little boy who hears about El Cucuy in a story from his parents, but doesn't believe it. He calls him something along the lines of "Mr. Cuckoo" or "The Cuckoo," and then at the end of the story El Cucuy comes to get him.
  • A story where a guy hears an urban legend about someone who is shot in a gas station bathroom stall. He stops at a gas station to use the bathroom also gets shot. I think this one had more of a horror comedy vibe to it.
  • A little boy who is scared of clowns gets a fire assembly presentation from a clown at his Catholic school. He's terrified of the clown, but no one believes that he's a threat, so the boy throws holy water on the clown, and the clown melts.

Thank you to anyone for your help!

Posted Jul 9, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

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