Kid lit horror: "The Night the Scarecrow Walked"

Kids' media didn't pull any punches when it came to scares in the 1970s. The boogeyman didn't care how old you were. Edges weren't softened, and not everything was infused with winking humor to remind you it was all make-believe. Many books, movies, TV shows, public service commercials (especially in Britain), and amusement rides had real fangs. As just one example among many, talk to someone whose parents plopped them down in front of the movie version of Watership Down at age 8. Look, bunnies! 

Which brings us to today's book: The Night the Scarecrow Walked, written by Natalie Savage Carlson (1906-1997) and eerily illustrated by Charles Robinson (1931-2014). The 32-page children's book was published in 1979 by Charles Scribner's Sons and presented by Weekly Reader Books. Infused with folk horror dread and coming across like a children's version of the 1976 horror movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown, it tells the FAFO tale of two children who won't leave a creepy scarecrow well enough alone. 

The illustrations below give the bare outline of the tale. Imagine reading this under your blanket as a kid and then trying to get to sleep. Was that a branch tapping the window, or...?

The book had a 4.7 rating (out of 5) on Amazon but oddly only a 3.97 rating (out of 5) on Goodreads.

Here are some of the memories from those two websites:

• "I bought this book because I used to read it with my grandfather, and I have very fond memories of reading it with him. It's very spooky! The illustrations are creepy."
• "I have been reading this story to my second grade students for almost 20 years."
• "I loved this book as a child. When I was very young, my grandmother used to babysit me after school for a few hours each day and often would read me stories. The Night the Scarecrow Walked was my absolute favorite. I would asked her to read it to me just about every day from late August through Halloween! The story even inspired me to make my own scarecrow one year. The book still sits on my bookshelf today."
• "Another phenomenal Halloween book for children! The illustrations capture Halloween perfectly, and the story is a rare one in which the possibility of a scarecrow coming to life might just be true!!!"