On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

This book is a spine-tingling series of ghost stories, loosely held together by a teen's narrative as he visits an overgrown cemetery late one night. It starts with a good turn - Mike offers a ride to a drenched girl, who leaves her shoes in his car. Upon returning them, he is told that Carol Anne drowned 60 years ago, and returns once a year on the anniversary of her death. In the forgotten graveyard, Mike hears atmospheric voices from forgotten teens, each of whom met an early death. From Edgar in the 1800s, tormented by images in the wallpaper, to Scott, whose camera may have photographed his own death, each ghost story is about 10 pages long. They are beautifully plotted and intelligently written, with enough twists and turns and rising mists and cobwebbed attics to send goose bumps up even adult spines. A great choice for adventurous middle school readers who want to rise above simple thrills for sophisticated yet chilling tales.
About me: I'm a middle school/high school librarian
How I got this book: Purchased for the school library

On the Day I Died is a sometimes cheesy, sometimes chilling, but always fun collection of short stories recounting the deaths of teens throughout the past two centuries in the Chicago area. I very much like this type of set-up in a short story collection, where there is a frame story that gives a reason for and ties together all of the other stories in the collection. In this case it is Mike coming to the graveyard to listen to the tales of the deceased.

Candace Fleming makes use of a variety of cultures throughout time, and I loved how true to each time period's particular style of horror these stories stayed. The Depression with its wise guys and gangsters, the 50s with its fascination with outer space, the obsession with objects in the 70s-80s, and the Gothic feel of the 19th century. Sticking to the vernacular of each time period really helped set the mood of each character, even if it did seem a bit extreme at times.

Waiting to hear how each character finally kicked the bucket was a bit like waiting for the bell man's arm to be chopped off in Hot Tub Time Machine. You know it's coming, you're just not sure how, and the anticipation had me jumping the gun on more than one occasion. The ghosts in the graveyard get that whole barroom story-topping mentality of `you think that's bad? You should hear my story', which really made me grin. Some of the stories were laughable (Johnnie), some were incredibly cheesy (David), but some of them did give me genuine chills (Gina and Edgar). Candace Fleming retells the classic The Monkey's Paw in a modernized setting, and also weaves in aspects of other classics like Berenice and The Yellow Wallpaper.

I'd recommend On the Day I Died to younger teens who like to be scared, particularly anyone who was a big fan of the Goosebumps series.

I thought it was a good read
It was funny, happy, sad, suspensful, and mysterious. A book that I would recommend to others