I recently read Breathe; a ghost story by Cliff McNish and thought it was one of the scariest books ever.  It's in the kids' section, tho.  Should it be?  A book isn't like a movie; if there are no pictures, what gives it "graphic" violence?  Perhaps it is only the way in which the book connects to our own fears. 

In Breathe, Jack, a 12-year-old boy with severe asthma and his mother come to a new home to try to move forward in their lives.  The boy's father has just died.  The new home is haunted with the ghosts of children who were brought there by a ghost mother.  The ghost mother keeps from moving on to hell by sucking life force from the ghost children.  The scariest parts were when the ghost mother takes on the body of Jack's mom and when a ghost child goes to The Nighmare Passage (hell).  However, if you know someone who has asthma, you will be quite afraid when the ghost mother who looks like mom attacks Jack and he can't breathe.   For which of us is an image of hell too scary?  Are there other people like me who are scared to death of an evil imposter inhabiting my mother?  Coraline  by Neil Gaiman is another book in which that happens.  What are the scariest books you've read?