When I was a kid, my dad would tell me stories while I would play on my swing-set. Most of his stories were funny, but I remember some were scary—I recall in particular one about a vampire that he told me at sunset one evening. Our house was across the street from a cemetery, and my dad took full advantage of this fact for his tale.

Reading The Witch Under the Mountain, by the incomparable Noah Goats and his daughters writing as “Audrey N. Allison,” brought back those happy memories. It’s about two young girls and their father, who tells them a tale of an evil witch buried under Temple Mountain—which just happens to be where they are going camping the next night.

The two girls—delightfully named Audball and Ally-cat—are both excited and nervous about the trip, but as more and more elements of their father’s story are verified before their eyes, their fear grows, even while their father remains stubbornly oblivious to all of it.

Soon, it becomes clear that he has fallen under the spell of the evil witch, and it’s up to Audball and Allycat to save him—even if it means confronting dangers like ghosts, bears and walking skeletons.

The Witch Under the Mountain is, of course, a book for children; so the horror is kept at a level acceptable to an eight-to-twelve year old. Even so, it’s effective. There’s no setting I like more than a desert at night with hints of supernatural presences, and that’s exactly what this story delivers. There’s even a scene where the trio is trapped in an old abandoned cabin at night. I love things like that. 

There’s something about scary stories aimed at children—they never completely lose their punch. I think it’s because fear is an unusual kind of emotion that unlike say, love, doesn’t evolve as we get older. The dark is always scary, whether you’re five years old or five hundred, because you don’t know what’s in it. 

A good way to find the essence of something is to imagine explaining it to a child, and that’s why horror tales for children and about children work so well. Even in this tale, which is told with a generous side of Goats-ian humor, the classic tropes of curses and monsters in the night still make for a good atmosphere. My favorite scary stories usually have an element of fun to them—people like to be scared. I’m not sure precisely what biological or evolutionary reason there is for this trait, but it’s undeniable.

The real star of this book, though, is the illustrations. They are simple, black-and-white drawings that look sort of like charcoal sketches. They are simple, but effective and atmospheric. The cover gives you a good idea of the style—it’s stark and memorable. My only complaint was that there weren’t more of these illustrations—that’s how much I enjoyed them!

If you have young children, or if you just want to entertain the young child that lives in all of us, this book is perfect for the Halloween season.