Scary Stories book from the Elementary school library, Taily-po + others

I'm looking for a children's scary stories anthology collection that I can remember vividly from from my youth. I'll list every detail I can recall:

◘ It was a hardcover, I read it when I was in the 3rd grade and I remember it as being new, so it may have been published in 1986 or '87.

◘ The cover was a composite of the monsters / scary things from all the stories. I'm nearly positive there was a large, spooky tree on it. The Taily-po in the branches of the tree, and the monster from "The Sea Chest" standing next to it.

◘ It contained the old "Taily-po" story.

◘ This may be the clincher to identifying it : there was a story in it about a parent buying an old chest for a brother + sister. Every night, a pirate or sea ghost comes out of the chest and terrorizes them. I remember the story being very vivid of how the ghost made the room stink of seaweed & the ocean, and of the children's fear of it - something along the lines of "They tried to scream for their parents, but no sound would come no matter how hard they tried." I seem to remember an illustration: a point-of-view shot over the ghost's shoulder, of the kids hiding in the corner of the room. The story may have been called "The Sea Chest" or "The Old Chest".

Well, that's all I can remember of it. If I could find this book - I've been looking for info on it for 20+years.

The scariest stories you've ever heard by Mark Mills?

Was is sort of like the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series?

I own all three of those, they were released in paperback and none of them were illustrated. All three were incredible tho :)

It was somewhat similar, but the artstyle of the illustrations was different. They were more like the ones in In a Dark, Dark Room

Short & Shivery by Robert D. San Souci? It has been published several times. Earliest date I could find was 1987.

I think it might be Short & Shivery, actually.

The sea-chest story isn't in Short & Shivery in that exact form - I just read and reviewed it on my blog in the last 6 months. There IS a sea-shack ghost tale in there, but it's of a poor fishergirl who gets to go to school and is mocked by all the kids, save two friends she eventually makes. They visit often, but always at the rich houses - the poor girl is ashamed of her fisherman's house. Later in the school year she goes out with her father fishing in a storm and they both die, and when the girls don't see her at school for days, they come to the beach shantytown to visit and see if she's sick, and they find her ghost there in the abandoned shack waiting to play with them.

So, similar, but not an exact match.

If you want, I did a "spoilery" review of all the stories in the collection, because I have the hardest time remembering which stories come from what sources. http://scshisho.blogspot.com/2015/08/juvenile-fiction-short-and-shivery.html

Seeing the other stories summarized might make you remember them, or help you rule it out completely?

"A group of girls makes a new friend: a girl from the settlement of fishing shacks along the ocean. The girl is excited to be going to school with her new friends, but makes one last trip out with her father - and that night is a terrific storm, and they never come back. The girls worry about their new friend, and head down to the now-abandoned shack to see if they can find her - but find her waterlogged ghost instead.

Extra creepy because of the inclusion of grade-school kids for the cast-members. Love the morbid descriptions of the moldy old fishing shack and the wet slap of the ocean waves."

This may be *it*. I must get this book and find out.

http://getebookz.club/pltruah4i/pic-crunchingsandmunchings.files.wordpress.com/2... - another illustration I found on Google image search. That may have been what the illustrations looked like in the book I'm thinking of, is that from this one?

OK the book's in the mail XD
I'll post back after I get it whether this is the one I'm thinking of.

That interior illustration is from Short & Shivery, yes.

Okay, I received the book in the mail yesterday and after looking it over - this *is* the one I was looking for! Thanks so much for your help!

The illustration I described is even in the book http://www.imagebam.com/image/17d49f485943492 but it's not exactly in the context that I was recalling it. I did indeed remember it as being attached to the "Ghostly Little Girl", but it was actually a part of "Billy Mosby's Night Ride". "Ghostly Little Girl" didn't have an illustration, and since it made such an impression on me back then I must have just mentally associated the picture to my favorite story of the book LOL

You're welcome.

Yay! So glad you found it!