Book details

  • Genre:fiction
  • Sub-genre:Horror
  • Language:English
  • Pages:104
  • Paperback ISBN:9798317813949

The Thing Without a Name

And Other Strange Tales from the Ozark Hills

Overview

The Thing Without a Name is a deliciously creepy collection of short stories about a lost world where reclusive hill folk live alongside ancient monsters who lurk in deep ravines and bottomless caves.
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Description

The Thing Without a Name is a spellbinding collection of short stories about a lost world where reclusive hill folk live alongside troubled spirits and terrifying monsters. Among them is the Thing Without a Name, a sightless, limbless and slimy creature whose ravenous appetite propels it from its hiding places in ravines and caves to seek out human flesh. Readers will be introduced to tales of madness, murder and killer rocks, including The Devil's Marbles, The Man With a Tail on His Head, and Our Mad Woman. All of which are told in grim detail by Granny Grit, a wise and canny weaver of tales who knows all the secrets hidden in the hills.
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About The Author

Ida Chittum is the author of the cult classic, Tales of Terror (1975), a chilling collection of stories about ghosts, murders and monsters set in the Ozarks of Missouri where she was reared, one of ten children from a poor family of sharecroppers. After marrying and rearing five children, she launched her career at age 52 when she published her first story for Scholastic Magazine. "Well," Ida said, "I looked that check and I threw down my broom and picked up my pen." The housewife from Findlay, Illinois found an agent on Fifth Avenue in New York City and went on to author thirteen books for children and young adults, including Farmer Hoo and the Baboons (1971), which won the Lewis Carrol Shelf award, followed by Clabber Biscuits (1972) and popular picture books, such as The Cat's Pajamas (1980). Ida never lost her knack for telling stories to rapt listeners. She became a popular public speaker, visiting schools, libraries and universities and in 1977 was recognized by Central Missouri State University for her Outstanding Contribution to Children's Literature.
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Book Reviews

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Margaret
The Thing Without a Name In the 18 wonderful short stories of “The Thing Without a Name” by Ida Chittum (1918-2002), we meet an unforgettable character, Granny Grit. She’s “lean, weather-browned, wind-seamed, and leather-tough,” a storyteller in the isolated communities of the Missouri Ozarks, rich in folklore, where Chittum grew up. Granny’s hair-raising tales taught life lessons that kept children on the straight and narrow, wedded to kindness, thrift, and love of living creatures. In her most frightening tale, a monster shows up every 10 or 15 years that can change a child into a slimy, slippery mass, never to be heard from again. To save yourself, Granny said, never overeat on sweets, keep yourself neat and clean, and never tell lies. Good advice for all of us to live by! Read more
Friend
Stories that will haunt you My mother, the late Ida Mae Chittum, knew what it was like to live among ghosts, swim in a creek like a beaver and fall asleep in a barn warmed by the hot breath of slumbering cows. At age 52, she sent the last of five children off to college, taught herself to type and wrote the first of more than a dozen books for children and teens. Each one of them is magical, and startlingly original. Many of them are true, but so outlandish that she found it easier to wrap them in the gauze of fiction. All were inspired by her experiences as a wild child roaming the remote hills of the Ozark, where ravenous creatures like the Monster of Poor Hollow and the terrifying Thing Without a Name slithered from their hiding places in ravines and depthless caves at night to terrorize anyone foolish enough to doubt their existence. Read more
Anike
Unforgetable and wonderfully eerie The Thing Without a Name has stayed with me ever since I began to read it. Ida Chittum captures that perfect mix of mystery, fear, and wonder that few stories ever achieve. It’s spooky without being gory, and deeply human beneath the chills. I still think about the chapters I've read so far — a haunting little masterpiece that deserves huge attention. Read more
Diane
The Thing without a Name The Thing Without a Name is the truly creepy title story of this spooky collection by the late Ida Chittum, who drew inspiration from her childhood in the Ozarks. Not for the faint of heart, these stories introduce the reader to crying trees, a mad woman who conjured the dead and a sightless, slithering monster who hides in caves by day and prowls the woods at night in search of human prey. Read more
Charles
The Thing Without a Name This captivating collection of 18 super scary stories and strange tales from the Ozark Hills is deliciously unlike any other book. It is perfect for Halloween or any time. Author Ida Chittum is a supremely gifted storyteller, and these offerings are among her best. In this book she draws upon her own experiences of being raised in the Ozark Hills using only the starkness of nature, animals, and some very scary characters as her canvas. Granny Grit is the wizened narrator of these spine chilling tales. My favorite is the title story about a haunting creature that cannot die and is driven by a very particular appetite. Other chilling tales involve a girl that lives with ghosts, a 200 pound chicken, and a tree that cries. This slim but priceless book is one that I will read again and again. Author Ida Chittum was raised in the Ozark Hills among people that did not have TV's or books. Storytelling was a favorite past time and Ida Chittum is the Picasso of storytellers. I highly recommend this haunting book to everyone. Read more
Jennifer
Granny Grit's Tales: An Enthralling Cast of Stranglings Enter the mysterious world of Granny Grit, a lean, weathered and leather-tough sage who resembled “a crisp twit of twine with a knot for a head.” Her stories captivate and terrorize her young audience, and her voice rings with the authority of the aged and the language of the Ozark hills. Granny weaves spine-chilling tales that introduce her throng to a bizarre cast of characters: a madwoman who fashioned pictures from rocks, a chicken who swallowed an elephant, a woman who conjured and lived with ghosts to stave off her loneliness. There are crying trees, gypsies, and a creeper; colorful oddballs with distinctive names, like hot-tempered Nashville Grit and Young Ep, whose quest to find the end of the rainbow leads him back home. And, as the title promises, there is the “thing without a name,” a formless, faceless changeling with rancid breath—and a tale that Granny Grit expertly crafts to entice the children to practice good behavior. Read The Thing Without a Name. I guarantee you will delight in these mysterious, spooky, bone-chilling yarns — and, that you will never let your hands dangle over the edge of the bed at night. Read more