In Taiwanese School Ghost Stories and Where They Come from, the author sleuths out Taiwan’s most iconic school-related ghost stories and their variants. The fact that most readers likely already have a passing familiarity with at least a few of the underlying plotlines ensures this book a place in Taiwan’s collective cultural memory bank. Their placement in familiar school settings, from bathrooms and dormitory rooms to shadowy school-campus corners, imbues these stories with plausible realism. The author accompanies her readers on this journey, allowing both to discover together what makes these stories “scary” and why we sometimes simply need to be scared.