sf, see that's what my 6th grade teacher wigged the hell out on. @@

I got into my mother's Wambaugh novels and freaked her out with homely little nuggets like "Do you know people try to get high off pencil lead? Of course, it doesn't work."(I really should have changed more, don't you think?) Kathy, considering Law&Order still continually dips in that well, you've got decent taste in mayhem. When I was thirteen, I think I read "Wifey", sj. More women's fiction than romance as such, but...

Heh, at 10 I was all up into "Clan of the Cave Bear." At 12, it was "Valley of Horses" and I was EXTREMELY popular for being able to turn right to the sexy parts and do dramatic readings by the pool in our apartment complex that summer for the girls.

IOAmazingLiteraryN, Edna Ferber just sent me Cialis spam.

Huh.

I can vouch for the Spiderwick Chronicles being fine for a 5 year old. They are pitched a little older than that (protagonists are 8-10) but my 5 year old was not scared (beyond a little happy-scared), and there's nothing for normal parents to object to. (Parents who object to anything supernatural on principle would have trouble, but if you're okay with fairies, you're good.)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may not be gothy per se, but it certainly put a certain way of thinking in my head that isn't far from it, IMO. And a good Edgar Allen Poe collection of short stories can get by as a "classic" despite the fact that any number of those stories are potentially traumatic (or would that be revelatory) in a really interesting way .

Not that I'm talking from childhood experience or anything.

I started out in trashy romances in 6th grade with the mid-70s original bodice rippers such as Kathleen Woodiwiss's "The Flame and the Flower." I then downgraded to Harlequin romances and Barbara Cartlands because that's what my aunt loaned me (she thought they were more appropriate for my age, and also that's what she was reading; I returned the favor some 15 years later when I started bringing her bags of my Silhouette Blaze and Intimate Moments books after I finished them).

Kathy, considering Law&Order still continually dips in that well, you've got decent taste in mayhem.

Well, they were local boys. Leopold's duration in Stateville was before my grandpa was a janitor or my uncle did his semi-annual dentist visits there (uncle did work on Speck's teeth, though).

Speaking of Dahl and Goth: The Witches.

All of Dahl has a bit of the goth mindset in it, I'd say, though it's certainly most overt in Witches.

I would throw some Gaiman into the mix (You can't get started too young). I would think Graveyard Book would qualify.