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Formats
Paperback Details
  • 07/2021
  • 979-8537139911 B09BGHW6QB
  • 56 pages
  • $6.00
Audio Details
  • 09/2016
  • B01LD7Q53E
  • 56 pages
  • $3.95
Waide Riddle
Author
The Chocolate Man: A Children's Horror Tale
Waide Riddle, author

Middle Grade; Poetry; (Publish)

A candy maker in 1899, New York City, poisons his chocolates and serves them to the local children, only to turn them into chocolate, too. A shocking ending that will thrill and scare all kids! The original classic 2001 audiobook narrated by Jack Geren. The 2016 audiobook was narrated by Ted Gitzke.

Reviews
Cleveland State University Poetry Center

The Chocolate Man may very well become a children's classic one day soon. Excellent story!

Garrett Peck/Horror Writers Association

When is a book not exactly a book? When it is an audiobook. When is a children’s story not exactly a children’s story? When it’s just as entertaining for adults. Both of these descriptions apply to this superlative dramatic adaptation of Waide Aaron Riddle’s very creepy children’s horror tale, The Chocolate Man: A Children's Horror Tale.  

As though written by the evil twin of Dr. Seuss, The Chocolate Man tells the story of a truly nasty predator who entices children with promises of candy, only to turn them into chocolate children for devouring. Our hero is the young boy, Dean, who is taken to the chocolate man’s lair, Black Raven Manor. He must try to find a way to save himself, as well as a captive girl named Jean, who has already lost her arm to the villain. “He said I tasted like pumpkin pie,” she tells him.

The story is written in rhythmic, hypnotic verse consciously evoking the traditional fairy tale. The lilting narration and dialogue are all the creepier for it. The audio is ably narrated by actor, Jack Geren, who employs different voices for the various characters and has particular fun with the title character. In the manner of classic radio dramas, the audiobook also employs a very creepy music soundtrack and some sound effects to enhance the reading.

In many ways, this project is a revival of several traditions that have long been on the wane and are well overdue for a comeback. Audio is a particularly good medium to present horror stories in, it forces the listener to use his/her own imagination to picture the events being described. There’s no chance of having the spell broken by seeing a zipper running down the back of a monster costume like can happen in cinema. Horror stories have always been popular choices for oral storytelling. After all, when people are clustered around a campfire in the dark woods, who says, “Hey, let’s all tell some love stories!”

The Chocolate Man very consciously evokes the traditional fairy tale, like those written by the Brothers Grimm. If you’ve ever read the original versions of classic stories like Little Red Riding Hood you know they’ve often been watered down in adaptations. Riddle avoids this like the plague. He doesn’t dumb down his language for children, nor does he temper his disturbing images. It’s quite possible some parents will think this story is too strong for younger kids, but I doubt the kids will feel that way. 

The Chocolate Man has even had several successful radio broadcasts in Austin and Los Angeles.

The audiobook and paperback make an excellent complement to one another. 

Do yourself a favor and get both! Turn the lights down low, settle back, close your eyes and allow this story to take you away. Even better, share it with your kids. It will remind you what it was like to be a small child, shivering at the powerful magic of storytelling. It might even help you regain a little bit of that magic for yourself. Your guaranteed four-book wyrms worth of entertainment. 

Mark Lowry/Dallas Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Staff Writer

Each October, we happily expect the mindless horror flicks and expensive haunted houses that lure us with well-executed designs. But it’s rare when something comes along that induces goosebumps drawn from the deeper fears of imagination. That’s why, The Chocolate Man: A Children’s Horror Tale, a story-poem by a Texas-born writer, Waide Aaron Riddle, is so refreshing. The 40-minute poem, also an audiobook narrated by actor Jack Geren tells a macabre tale about the evil title character, whose tempting candy turns children into tasty treats that he then consumes. In 1899 New York City, The Chocolate Man sweeps into town periodically to collect the children, bringing them into his dungeon at Black Raven Manor. It brings new meaning to “death by chocolate.” Told in rhyming meter, the story is fascinating throughout and builds in a manner that revives campfire-worthy spoken narrative. “I wrote this story to encourage storytelling,” Riddle says, “and to remember the great American ghost story because that genre is all but faded.” If the story sounds a bit Grimm, it’s no coincidence. In 1999, Riddle was cast as an extra in the L.A. Opera production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Center. That’s when The Chocolate Man came to him. Several months and revisions later, a printed version was completed. Though the work was initially planned for a radio reading, he was persuaded to record it as an audiobook. The format is perfect. Geren’s oral theatrics are engaging and his character voices exceptional. The entire piece is underscored with creepy, inventive music. Riddle’s impressive enchantment for rhyme, meter, and intensely descriptive storytelling are the real stars. "Mass torrents of angry clouds/Waved . . . crawling to earth with fog and mist/Alley cats hissed as the sewer mice dared not risk/Frostbite bit, the street lamps lit/This was just a hint of what was to come/For pure evil wanted some pleasure and a little fun/Beware/The Chocolate Man, he has come/Run children, run.”

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 07/2021
  • 979-8537139911 B09BGHW6QB
  • 56 pages
  • $6.00
Audio Details
  • 09/2016
  • B01LD7Q53E
  • 56 pages
  • $3.95
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