


Scary Stories
A collection of horror for the brave-hearted reader.
Not only ghosts that haunt ancient mansions and vengeful creatures looking for victims, but also vampires of the abyss and demons born from the worst nightmares. What should you do when faced by a threatening, disturbing shadow? Run away without turning back or look terror in the face, to overcome it? The protagonists of these stories have no doubts: all fears rely on chills.
- 19 spine-tingling stories by some of Italy’s most celebrated children’s authors, including Pierdomenico Baccalario, Guido Sgardoli, Fiore Manni, and Manlio Castagna.
- Perfect for middle-grade readers who love horror, suspense, and eerie mysteries.

Pierdomenico Baccalario has been writing children’s novels since 1997, when he won the Il Battello a Vapore literary prize with La strada del Guerriero (The Way of the Warrior) using his neighbour’s name. Since then, his bestsellers have been written under as many pseudonyms (the best known being Ulysses Moore and Irene Adler), translated into more than thirty languages and published with major Italian and foreign publishers. He has collaborated with Lucca Comics & Games for more than twenty years, has written for Repubblica, and is a columnist for the newspaper Corriere della Sera’s La Lettura literary supplement. In 2014, he founded the Book on a Tree creative agency in London.

Christian Antonini is an author of books for both children and adults, with a passion for history, adventure, and fantasy. He grew up surrounded by books, comics, and games. His novel Fuorigioco a Berlino (Giunti) won the Premio Bancarellino in 2017 and the Premio Il Gigante delle Langhe. In 2023, he was included in the Italian IBBY Honour List with La Musica nelle Ossa (Mondadori).

Screenwriter, director, author, and film critic, he spent over 20 years as part of the artistic direction of the Giffoni Film Festival.
He made his debut in children's fiction in 2018 with the bestselling Petrademone trilogy (Mondadori), translated into several languages. Since then, he has explored a wide range of genres: from the historical fantasy of La notte delle malombre and Di fuoco e seta (both longlisted for the Strega Ragazzi Award and finalists in various literary prizes), to the horror of Goodwill and Nessuno verrà a prenderti, to nonfiction with the cinema guide 116 Movies to See Before You’re 16, and the genre-bending novel Dedalo & Dharma, all the way to social noir with Barriera (all published by the Mondadori Group).
The Reincarnation of the Klun Sisters and Try Not to Sleep are his adult fiction titles.
In 2022, he made his directorial and screenwriting debut in cinema with Il viaggio degli eroi, produced by Rai Cinema and awarded with record-breaking viewership on Rai1.
Igor De Amicis was born in Rome in 1976. Chief Commissioner of the Penitentiary Police, he shares his passion for writing with his wife Paola Luciani. Together they have written Giù nella miniera (Down the Mine), selected for the Bancarellino Prize 2017 reading project and winner of the Special Children’s Prize at the Parco Majella Prize 2017. Also for Einaudi Ragazzi, they have written Fugees Football Club, Igor Trocchia. A calcio al razzismo (Igor Trocchia. A Kick to Racism), Roberto Mancini nella terra dei fuochi (Roberto Mancini in the Ground of the Fires), L’ultima verità (The Ultimate Truth) and various titles of the Classicini, Grandissimi and Che storia! series. For Il Battello a Vapore, they have published Il mistero delle lettere senza nome (The Mystery of the Nameless Letters). Igor has also published several noir novels for adults, including La settima lapide (Dea Planeta), O’ Regno (Salani) and Gioventù criminale (Criminal Youth), Piemme. Paola has also published several essays and monographs on the world of education. The pair’s books have been translated in several countries (Greece, Spain, Poland, South America, Japan, Germany, etc.)
Paola Luciani was born in Pescara in 1980. A support teacher in primary schools, she invents, imagines and writes her stories together with her husband Igor De Amicis. Together they have written Giù nella miniera (Down the Mine), selected for the Bancarellino Prize 2017 reading project and winner of the Special Children’s Prize at the Parco Majella Prize 2017. Also for Einaudi Ragazzi, they have written Fugees Football Club, Igor Trocchia. A calcio al razzismo (Igor Trocchia. A Kick to Racism), Roberto Mancini nella terra dei fuochi (Roberto Mancini in the Ground of the Fires), L’ultima verità (The Ultimate Truth) and various titles of the Classicini, Grandissimi and Che storia! series. For Il Battello a Vapore, they have published Il mistero delle lettere senza nome (The Mystery of the Nameless Letters). Igor has also published several noir novels for adults, including La settima lapide (Dea Planeta), O’ Regno (Salani) and Gioventù criminale (Criminal Youth), Piemme. Paola has also published several essays and monographs on the world of education. The pair’s books have been translated in several countries (Greece, Spain, Poland, South America, Japan, Germany, etc.)

Gisella Laterza lives in Bergamo—or more precisely, in a downtown café where she spends her time writing. When she’s not writing, she teaches Italian and Latin at a high school and leads creative writing workshops for boys and girls aged 6 to 99. She has published novels, short stories for school anthologies, biographies, and a children’s adaptation of the Divine Comedy (Einaudi Ragazzi). Among her most successful series is Three Friends and a Diary (Tre amiche per un diario, Il Battello a Vapore). Under the pseudonym Ella Archer, she wrote Abyss and Enchantment, a fantasy romance currently being translated in France, the Netherlands, and Spain. The book was a finalist for the ILfest Prize (Munich, 2025) and the Romance Book Party Awards (Naples, 2025).

Born in Genoa, where she lives and writes books, she is a communication teacher and consultant who also runs creative writing workshops, including the online-only Lazy Writers Support Group (GSSP), founded in 2014. Among her novels are Qualcosa di vero (Feltrinelli, 2015), Vittoria (Feltrinelli, 2018), La banda degli Dei (Rizzoli, 2021 – Winner of the 2022 Bancarellino Selection Prize), and La palestra dei desideri (Rizzoli, 2025).
In 2023, together with 26 students and writer Alice Basso, she published the collective novel Un altro ballo ancora(Garzanti), which she conceived and coordinated.
She has also written stories for several anthologies, including “I bulli sono buoni solo cotti” in Racconti su Halloween(Gallucci, 2023) edited by Manlio Castagna; “L'ultimo giorno di scuola” in Racconti sotto l'ombrellone (Gallucci) edited by Marco Magnone; and “Tre fiori di cenere” in Sette storie horror (Battello a Vapore) edited by Manlio Castagna.

Barbara Gozzi is a senior editor, author, creative, ghostwriter and much more. She coordinates publishing projects and various types of content, curates training courses and has a hand in events, initiatives and, before the camerawork, in outlines and scripts.

Marco Magnone is one of Italy's most acclaimed and sought-after children's authors by schools, festivals, and reading groups. Thanks to these engagements, he meets thousands of young readers every year. His stories, which have earned him two nominations for the Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi Prize, often blend various genres but share a common goal: to explore the profound meaning of growing up. He teaches narrative at the Holden School in Turin and at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

Fiore Manni lives in Rome, has studied fashion design, and hosted the successful kids' TV show Camilla Store for several years. Her debut novel, Jack Bennet e la chiave di tutte le cose (Rizzoli, 2018), won the Premio Asti d'Appello Junior and was a finalist for the Castello di Sanguinetto Award, the oldest Italian prize for children's literature. With Book on a Tree, she has created numerous projects, including Come le cicale (Rizzoli, 2021), I misteri di Mercurio, Vol. 6 - Leonardo, I fiumi del tempo (Emonsraga, 2022), Amore, sesso e altre cose così (Rizzoli, 2022), Il re delle volpi (Rizzoli, 2023), and Il tempo delle volpi (Rizzoli, 2024).

Lucia Perrucci grew up in Puglia, on an isolated country road, surrounded by olive trees, cats, and film rolls. She was convinced she owned a velociraptor, so much so that her father gave her her first camera to prove it. Always in love with stories, she studied Literature in Bologna and Cinema at the Giffoni Film Festival. She's a creative writing instructor and contributes to magazines and anthologies. Today, she writes and teaches at a middle school, where she absolutely adores her students and always dedicates her stories to them. In 2022, she debuted with Mondadori with "La prodigiosa macchina cattura anime di Cassandra Apollinaire," which will also be published soon in France. "Nelle case dei morti non ci sono scale" (2024) is her second novel for young adults. This autumn, the fourth novel in "The Hidden Society" series, co-written with the Archer sisters for Castoro Off, will be released.

Born in San Donà di Piave (VE), a graduate in Veterinary Medicine, and a full-time writer. He collaborated for several years with newspapers, magazines, and websites dedicated to road trips, focusing on the history and traditions of the United States. He has had a long-standing interest in Ufology, Paranormal Phenomena, Astronomy, Archaeoastronomy, and the History of the United States and Native Americans.
In addition to his love of animals, he has always cherished books since childhood. Like many people, one day he decided to write his own story. Since then, he has never stopped, and in 2004, he published his first book, followed by many others: adventurous, entertaining stories filled with various "animality" that are beloved and widely read by children and young readers.

Alessandro Q. Ferrari, born in 1978 in Milan, is the author of successful novels and a screenwriter for comics, animated series, and TV shows. In 2019, he debuted with Le ragazze non hanno paura, which won the Premio Selezione Bancarellino and became a literary phenomenon. He also wrote the Star Wars graphic novel, which made it to the New York Times bestseller list.
Antonio Ferrara is a writer, illustrator, and trainer. In 2012, he received the Premio Andersen in the over 15 category for his book Ero cattivo, which tells the story of an adolescent victim of prejudice. He worked for seven years in a community for minors. He has collaborated with numerous publishing houses, including Mondadori, Rizzoli, Salani, San Paolo, Interlinea, Condè Nast, Falzea, Tolbà, Fatatrac, La Compagnie Creative, Artebambini, and Nuove Edizioni Romane. He conducts creative writing workshops for young people, teachers, prisoners, and patients, organizing them in schools, libraries, bookstores, prisons, cultural associations, and hospitals.

Davide Sarti holds a degree in Japanese Language and Culture. He works as a manga translator from Japanese, as well as a writer and scriptwriter.
He has published two novels for young readers and an essay exploring the graphic and narrative features of Japanese comics.
As a scriptwriter, he collaborates with publishers such as Star Comics and Disney.
His recent works include two short stories featured in the anthologies Storie da paura (Gallucci) and Sette storie horror(Piemme), both curated by Manlio Castagna.

Christian Hill is an author and screenwriter. He has written many children’s stories including Il Ladro dei Ceili (The Sky Thief), Rizzoli, winner of the Cento Children’s Literature Prize in 2019, and Olga, una Storia di Pace in Tempo di Guerra (Olga, A Story of Peace in Wartime), Rizzoli, which entered the Italian IBBY Honour List in 2023. His works have been translated into several languages, some of which he can recognise and some of which he can’t. He loves music, role-playing games and his armchair.

Giuditta Campello was born in 1987 and lives in the province of Varese. She writes books and stories for children and organizes reading and writing workshops in schools, libraries, and bookstores.

Jacopo Olivieri was born in Verona in 1966. He spent his childhood between the countryside just outside the city and Ivory Coast, thanks to his father’s work (who was an architect and set designer). Since he was a child, he had a passion for reading and drawing, and he nurtured interests that are still reflected in his books: the imaginary in general, ancient legends, prehistoric animals, museums, monster stories, and exploring abandoned and mysterious places.
After finishing classical high school and a brief attempt at Natural Sciences at the University of Bologna, he pursued his first career as a comic book author. At the same time, he spent decades working in theater (set design, costumes) both in his home country and abroad and experimenting as an illustrator wherever he could (carton packaging, Swatch shops, educational publishing, records, toys…).
His life took a turn when he had the adventure of meeting Pierdomenico Baccalario, who proposed that he write books for children and young readers. Since then, he has published with Italy's major publishing houses, as well as a few abroad.
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