"Gloom House Publishing & Mothers of Mayhem proudly offer this charity anthology of horrors -- Nursery Stories for Dumb Crotch Goblins: A Child's Garden of Curses. All proceeds go to DONATE LIFE AMERICA.
We all have an inner child. Sometimes that child is joyful and well-behaved, a shining symbol of nostalgia. At other times, that inner presence is decidedly darker and more disturbed, a small figure crouched in our mental shadows, grinning menacingly while holding a sharp knife. Our formative years teach us much about ourselves and the adults we will become. They teach us what delights us and what devastates us. They also reveal to us what we fear most in the world. Whether empirical and rational or imagined and impossible, such fears tend to stay with us. These stories are what happens when adult horror authors give their inner children permission to come out and play. But the authors in this book aren’t just any authors, and their inner children didn’t just come out and play; they ran amok, leaving trails of carnage and bloody sneaker prints across the floor. Good luck getting these uncomfortable and terrifying bedtime stories out of your head."
This anthology is filled with some really dastardly stories and poems from some of the best indie horror authors out there. I read the stories individually before they were released and remember thinking back then that they were big and bad.
Reading it through in its completed form, I was again shocked at some of the content! I must have pushed some of the stories out of my mind because it felt like they were new to me. The few that I didn't fully remember came back to me as I read them.
The poem, Good Little Boys by Meghan Stockton still fills me with heebie-jeebies, and I feel like I don't fully get the whole story with it. But it sure makes me feel weird! Barefoot Ben, a story by Lucas Milliron was one of my favourites back then, and was again this time around.
Let's talk about Before the Boogeymen Come by Kristopher Triana. This story is told from the pov of the monsters who live in the closet and under the bed. And it is a doozie. The monsters team up to ensure the kid is scarred by their existence in a way that will keep the big bad boogeyman from taking their jobs. There is a part near the end where the father comes in the room and he tries to calm the kid down by assuring him that monsters don't exist. But the kid knows they do, and so do we. It reminds me of being a child myself, being scared of the dark, and my parents telling me, "There is nothing to be scared of." While that may have been true, it sure felt like there was something to be afraid of!
The Fairy Princess by Brian Keene is a spooky halloween story with a not so happy ending... or is it? I really like the theme in this one. The mother has strong values that she pushes onto her daughter, even though the daughter doesn't share the same sentiment. The father can see that it weighs on his daughter and wants her to have a fun time despite the pressure. It's hard to say why the fairy garden presents itself to them, but my interpretation is it feels the call of sadness/depression felt by both daughter and father for different reasons.
Number Three Rainbow Lane by Ruthann Jagge, is a wicked re-telling of the Wizard of Oz, one of my all time fave stories. I really enjoy reading interpretations/remasters of this tale and this one hits the mark and then some!
Some of the content like I said was a bit brutal for me, particularily in The Ayptox by Edward Lee, and They Tell This Shit to Kids by Christine Morgan but both are very well written stories with excellent characters and solid endings.
Yokai, a poem by M. Ennenbach evokes the classic feelings that he consistenly gets out of me. Always a gut punch with that guy!
It's very nice that Jay Wilburn has a story included in this anthology and his story, Jack, was a brutal re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and to be honest, I like this version so much more than the original!
A solid, gruesome collection of not-for-kid bedtime stories and poems. I recommend checking it out 3.75/4 stars from me!
Where to find Nursery Stories for Dumb Crotch Gobblins: A Child's Garden of Curses: Amazon: https://a.co/d/6nR4HBS
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