From Dorrie and the Blue Witch

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Scooby-Doo, and I wanted to love it. The show had so much going for it—a giant talking dog, a cool van, creepy caretakers, haunted carnivals, lots of hiding in barrels and chase scene montages—but there was a problem. At the end of every episode, the ghost or ghoul always turned out to be some boring person wearing a disguise and complaining about “meddling kids.” I was so disappointed. Stop unmasking my monsters! I wanted to yell at the Scooby-Doo gang. I wanted real ghosts, real phantoms, real horror, not some grouchy hotel manager in a sheet.

The same thing kept happening in the books I read. Banshee shrieks became screech owl calls, footsteps in the attic turned out to be rats, and skeletal figures were revealed as shadows of tree limbs. Where were…