The Ghost Next Door by R. L. Stine

Book Review of The Ghost Next Door (Goosebumps Book 10) by R. L. Stine

Ghost Next Door by R. L. Stine is the 10^th book from the Goosebumps series. Instead of going to a camp like her best friend Janey did, Hannah spends the vacation with her family. While hanging out in their yard one day, Hannah meets a boy named Danny Anderson. Danny introduces himself as her next door neighbour. He lives in a house that Hannah previously thought was empty. She doesn’t remember having seen anyone move in. This makes her suspicious. She wants to talk about it to her parents, but they hardly show any interest. Hannah regularly writes to Janey, but doesn’t hear back from her. This bothers her. But there’s nothing she can do about it. Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to a camp. So when most of her friends are away, she’s left behind. Meanwhile, she keeps her watch on Danny, who tells her that he goes to Maple Avenue Middle school, the same that Hannah herself goes. How come she has never seen him around then? She asks him about his friends. He names some, but she can’t recognise any of them. She tells him about her friends, and Danny doesn’t recognise them either. This strikes her as singularly odd. Had he been around for a while, like he claims he did, wouldn’t Hannah see him at least once? One day, Danny falls from a ladder. It all happens in Hannah’s presence, but strangely she doesn’t hear the sound of his falling on the ground. Hannah, now has a doubt that Danny isn’t real. Everything about this boy, Danny, living next door is very, very odd and Hannah wants to know if he is telling the truth. Eventually she learns what she wanted to know about him, and also a lot about herself. 

Ghost Next Door by R. L. Stine kept me glued to its pages. Hannah was having frequent nightmares. Only during the last few chapters I realised they were not just nightmares, but highly suggestive narratives from a violent past. I have to admit the final twist in the plot completely caught me unawares. What a strange way for a story to end! It doesn’t scare you half to death or anything. But it certainly fills you with uneasy anticipations. Though the end of Ghost Next Door by R. L. Stine was splendid, I believe a more abrupt ending would do more justice to the story. While reading the last few pages, I had the feeling that the story ran an extra few miles beyond what could be a dramatic end.

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Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R. L. Stine

Book Review of Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R. L. Stine

Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R. L. Stine is the 13^th book from the famous Goosebumps horror series. In the attic of their new home, Jerome finds a piano that seems to play sad melodies all by itself.  Jerome’s parents move from Cedarville to a place called New Goshen. Soon after they settle in their new house, they discover a piano left behind by earlier occupant. That night Jerome hears music coming down from the attic. He decides to inspect. The music stops as soon as he turns the light on. There is nobody in the attic. The piano played by itself. Jerome concludes that it was one of those instruments that play automatically, like a jukebox or something. His parents complain of the noise, because they think it was Jerome who has been tinkering with the piano. Shortly after this his father employs a piano teacher for him. He is to take piano lessons from one Mr. Shreek who marvels at Jerome’s hands. “What beautiful hands,” he seems to be fixated at them. “Excellent hands,” he keeps repeating. The lesson begins. Jerome can still hear the music at midnight. Now that the piano has been brought down from the attic to the family room, it seems quite strange to Jerome that his parents know nothing about the music. He believes the piano is haunted.  One night the spirit manifests itself and warns him to stay away from Dr. Shreek. His parents still don’t believe all this. They take him to the therapist. Jerome knows it’s pointless. He agrees to give Dr. Frye a visit, anyway. He tells Kim Li Chin, one of his fellow-students, about his piano lessons. But the name ‘Dr. Shreek’ seems to frighten her. She tells him about some rumours she heard about Dr. Shreek’s school. Jerome, who is now a regular student of that school, finds it difficult to believe in those rumours until the day he meets Mr. Toggle, the real man behind the school. Piano Lessons can be murder indeed.

Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R. L. Stine is an excellent book for children. R. L. Stine is an accomplished author. He knows perfectly well, how to keep his readers glued to his books. Every chapter ends with intense suspense. You want to know what happens next. Sometimes they are only false alarms, but they slowly elevates the tension to a point when it becomes impossible to put the book down. A Goosebumps book will hardly take more than 2 hours to finish. The language is kept simple so that young readers can enjoy the stories. If you’re young and into horror stories, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder by R. L. Stine can be a good starter.

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Say Cheese and Die by R. L. Stine

Book Review of Say Cheese and Die (Goosebumps Book 20) by R. L. Stine

Say Cheese and Die by R. L. Stine is about four kids who find a camera in a deserted house. Every time a picture is taken with this stolen camera, it shows some frightening aspect of the future. Anything that it predicts immediately turns into reality. Four friends - Greg, Shari, Doug and Michael – are terribly bored. Nothing seems to be entertaining in Pitts Landing. They badly long for some adventure – any adventure. Miachel suggests they explore the Coffman house - a decrepit house where no one seems to be living. However, there’s a rumour about a tramp called Spidey living in that house. They enter the building with a broken windowpane. In the basement they find some empty food boxes tossed all over the floor. This and a few other things show that someone, possibly Spidey, is actually living in the basement. Accidentally they open a secret door on the wall. That’s where the camera was hidden. They take the camera with them. Spidey returns. They escape through another door. As they run away, Spidey watches them from a window. So now he knows who stole his camera.

The pictures they take with this camera, come out weird. Greg’s father has bought a new car. He takes a photo of it. But the photo shows a wreck, a totaled car. Soon Greg’s father meets with an accident. The next photo he takes is of Doug. The picture shows him sprawled on the ground, his neck strangely bent. Shortly after this, Doug is hit by a ball. He collapses on the ground. His unconscious body lies in the same posture as that in the picture. On Shari’s birthday, Greg takes her photo, but she doesn’t appear in it. Soon Shari goes missing. The camera seems to predict the future. Or, is it changing the future in some subtle, devious way?

Say Cheese and Die by R. L. Stine is 20^th book in the Goosebumps horror series. There is this familiar fast paced style with each chapter ending with suspense that makes you want to read the next chapter immediately. With each chapter the plot becomes more gripping. However in this book, a few things remain unexplained. For example, after Shari vanished from her own birthday party, where did she go? How did she return? This and few other things, R. L. Stine didn’t care to explain. Loose ends like these make one slightly uneasy. Despite that, Say Cheese and Die by R. L. Stine has enough creeps to scare the hell out of a teenager.

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The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight by R. L. Stine

Book Review of The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight (Goosebumps Book 20) by R. L. Stine

The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight by R. L. Stine is the story of a farm where the scarecrows come alive through some black magic. Jodie and Mark go to Grandpa Kurt’s farm to spend a month in summer. Stanley, the farm help, who had worked for Grandpa for more than twenty years, meets them at the station. Mark boards at the back of the truck, while Jodie sits at the front with Stanley. Visiting Grandpa Kurt and Grandma Miriam has always been a pleasant thing for them. Jodie starts some conversation with Stanley who is a terrible driver. The corns have already grown higher – Jodie notices. It was then Stanley makes a strange remark, “The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight.” It is written in a book, Stanley says. Jodie can’t figure out whether it was a joke or something.

Stanley in The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight is very strange character. He is not very bright, but manages to do the farm chores. He is extremely superstitious and believes in black magic. He has a book about superstitions that he reads religiously. He circles the barn three times, before going on a fishing trip with Jodie and Mark. Stanley picks a corn to examine its growth. He finds it brown-collared and worm-eaten. This disturbs him. “That’s bad luck!” Stanley says, “The book says so.” Stanley lives with his son Stick, who calls Jodie and Mark, the ‘city kids’ and makes fun of them. Stanley’s remark that the scarecrow walks at midnight seems to have some effect on the children. Stanley says that by chanting spells from his book, it is possible to make the scarecrows come down and walk. One night Jodie opens a window and stares at the wavy cornfields. The shadowy figures of the scarecrows seem to move in unison. It is as if they are struggling to come down from their stakes. This scares them. They want to tell their grandparents about it the first thing in the morning. But it seems they don’t want to talk about it. Even Stanley, who has made those scarecrows, seems evasive. Grandpa Kurt’s farm was such a nice place to enjoy. But now everything seems so different. Soon Jodie and Mark are to learn the truth about the Scarecrows. It seems what Stanley said about the Scarecrows walking at Midnight, was just an understatement. The Scarecrow not only walks at Midnight, they turn into dangerous predators.

The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight by R. L. Stine is the 20^th book in his famous Goosebumps horror series. With exception of two or three stories, I find Goosebumps books quite entertaining. Usually they don’t have complicated plots. They have been quite popular among young readers. Jodie is twelve and her brother Mark is eleven. Twelve is the average age of main characters in Goosebumps series. This makes it more relatable as teenage reads. The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight by R. L. Stine has a tight, fast paced plot that will keep you glued to it till the end.

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Welcome to Camp Nightmare by R. L. Stine Review

Book Review of Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Goosebumps Book 9) by R. L. Stine

Welcome to Camp Nightmare by R. L. Stine is the story of a camp called Nightmoon. Billy, the teenage hero of Welcome to Camp Nightmare, realises that there’s something singularly odd about the Camp Nightmoon when one by one, his friends go missing. On reaching the camp Billy, along with three other boys - Mike, Jay and Collin – is allotted Bunk 4. Uncle Al, the camp director asks them to stay away from the Forbidden Camp. From the first night itself, accidents start happening. Mike gets bitten by a snake that was lying hidden under the sheets. To their shock, they discover that there is no nurse in the camp. Larry, one of the camp counsellors, asks Mike to wash and bandage the wound. Mike obeys him. Late at night, Jay takes Roger, another camper – and goes to the Forbidden Bunk for a little adventure. After they are gone, they hear a blood-curdling howl coming from the direction of the Forbidden Bunk. Soon Jay returns. He seems to be in a state of shock. There is no sign of Roger. He tells them about an animal – Sabre. The animal has killed Roger – says Jay. Later when they inquire about their missing friend, they are told that there has never been any boy named Roger in the camp. 

Mike, because of the snakebite goes to Uncle Al for help. He too doesn’t return. After this, the boys go missing one by one, till one day, Billy’s the only one left out. Billy writes about the horrors of Nightmoon camps in his letter to his parents. When he goes to deliver it, he finds all his earlier letters in a mailbag – undelivered. He tries to call his parents from a payphone he noticed somewhere in the camp. To his utter horror he discovers the payphone that hung on the wall of the lodge, is actually fake. They don’t want us to call out – the chilling realisation suddenly came to him. Back in Bunk 4, the bunks of Jay and Collin are now occupied by two strangers. Even those new boys go missing on a canoe trip. Billy now seriously considers escaping from the Nightmoon camp.

Welcome to Camp Nightmare by R. L. Stine is the 9^th book from the famous Goosebumps horror series. The plot was real thick, suspense was high. I found this book quite entertaining. However, I didn’t like how it ended. It was as if during the concluding chapters the author was in a hurry to get over with it. Moreover, it was a happy ending. I hate it when horror stories have happy endings. A story that was spiked with tension and horror all along, should have ended in a different way. However, considering its target readers - the children - the story of Welcome to Camp Nightmare by R. L. Stine doesn’t look that bad at all.

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The Werewolf of Fever Swamp by R. L. Stine Book Review

Book Review of The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (Goosebumps Book #14) by R. L. Stine

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp by R. L. Stine is the story of a creature that lurked behind the thickets of Fever Swamp. Grady’s parents moved to a house near Fever Swamp mainly because of the swamp deer that they had acquired from somewhere in South America. In their new residence, they put up a pen for them. With their father insisting them to explore the surroundings, Grady and his sister Emily went to the Fever Swamp. Once inside, they got lost. After a lot of difficulties they finally got back to their house. However, inside the swamp they found a shack and a strange man living there all alone. The man, they were told later, was the swamp hermit, who had been living there for a very long time. Inside the swamp the man gave them a chase, so Grady was not sure he was completely harmless, as his dad assured him to be. Though it is unusual for wolves to inhabit a swamp, they were often awakened from their sleep by loud howls that seemed to be coming from Fever Swamp.

Soon Grady befriended Will and Cassie, two children of about the same age as Grady. From them Grady learned about a few legends about the Fever Swamp and its hermit. Meanwhile, a Mr. Warner went missing. He had gone to the swamp for hunting and didn’t return after that. Cassie attributed it to The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. She suspected the swamp hermit to be the werewolf. Grady befriended an enormous dog, that appeared one day at their doorstep and insisted to pet him. Because of its size, Grady wanted to call it Wolf. 

Wolf started following him everywhere, even on his little adventures into the Fever Swamp. On one such adventure, Grady and his friends came face to face with the swamp hermit. From here the story paced up. Soon Grady was to find out the truth about The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, when the beast would pounce on him - at the same time revealing its true identity. The Werewolf turned out to be someone he knew and trusted.

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp is the 14^th book from R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps horror series. Goosebumps books are highly popular among teenagers. The language is pretty decent and simple. The brevity of Goosebumps books make them particularly suitable for young readers. Though this book may not give you a nightmare or something, it will certainly give you some thrill. I’d like to put this book under ‘mildly scary’ category. To the kids, who have more vivid imaginations, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp by R. L. Stine can be quite intriguing.

You Can't Scare Me (Goosebumps Book 15) by R. L. Stine

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The Beast from The East by R. L. Stine

Book Review of The Beast from The East (Goosebumps Book #43) by R. L. Stine

The Beast from The East is the story of three children – Ginger, Nat and Pat – who goes to a camping trip with their parents. After they reach a certain clearing near the stream, their parents starts hoisting a tent and the children enters the forest for playing. Soon they find themselves lost. After some time they were able to return to the stream. They walk along the stream hoping to trace back their camp. They walk a long way till the reach a clearing. But they don’t find any tent. Instead they find strange beasts. They try to hide themselves under the foliage, but are soon discovered themselves surrounded by the beasts. To their surprise, the beasts speak their language. They asked them to play a game that they are supposed to win, in order not to get eaten by the beasts.

“You’re the beast from the east,” one of the beasts tells them. They explain some of the rules of the game. They are supposed to play the game till sunset. If they win, they may leave. If they lose, they get eaten.  In this game The Beast from the East has to tag someone else, but he can’t tag from just any direction. He has to come from the east. When the children hear about the game, they realised they have little chance to win it against the beasts. 

The game starts immediately after this. The children run about in the forest trying to escape the beasts. They face life threatening situations. It is only after some time that they realise they will be free if they tag one of those beasts. That’s when they start chasing the beasts instead.

The Beast from The East by R. L. Stine is the 43^rd book in the Goosebumps series. It was supposed to come under horror genre. But somehow it didn’t. There was ample suspense in the beginning, but somehow the story turned more and more ridiculous as it went on. The beasts described by R. L. Stine were far too unrealistic even for a twelve year old. They are advanced enough to have universal language adaptors yet juvenile enough to play a silly, clueless game with the humans they were about to eat. Though the writing style of R. L. Stine is still magnificent, but The Beast from the East is too comical to be called true horror stuff.

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Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine

Book Review of Why I'm Afraid of Bees (Goosebumps Book #17) by R. L. Stine

Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine is the story of a boy called Gary Lutz who considers himself a failure. He has no friends. There are big, brawny kids who are after him. They beat him whenever they meet him – time and place don’t seem to have much importance to them. Gary is not liked by his neighbour Andretti either. Andretti is a beekeeper and Gary hates bees. He not only hates them, he seems to be afraid of them. Their buzzing noise irritates him. He even hates honey because it reminds him of bees.

The story of Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine gets a sudden twist when Gary finds an advertisement of ‘Person-To-Person Vacations’. On visiting the place mentioned in the advertisement, Gary meets Ms. Karmen who explained to him the process. According to her, Gary will be able to live in the body of someone who is willing to take Gary’s body in exchange. He fills up the application form and leaves. 

Soon Gary receives a call from Ms. Karmen informing him that a boy named Dirk Davis has agreed to switch bodies with him. Ms. Karmen sets up her machines to initiate the process. But the switching goes wrong and instead of the body of Dirk, it sends Gary into a bee’s body.

Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine is the 17^th book of Goosebumps horror series. I usually find the Goosebumps books thrilling. This book is no exception to that. However, I didn’t find it scary enough. Apiphobia is not much common around here, I guess. Back in my childhood I was not afraid of bees. I was afraid of spiders, snakes and other things, but never of bees. Nor did I know anyone who was afraid of bees or bee stings. That’s why it was very difficult for me to put myself in Gary’s shoes. Though Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine hasn’t entirely failed to scare me, I found his other books like I Live in Your Basement, lot scarier.

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Book Review: Chicken Chicken by R. L. Stine

Chicken Chicken by R. L. Stine is the story of a twelve year old girl Crystal and her brother Cole who unintentionally evoke the wrath of a strange woman called Vanessa. Vanessa has a farmhouse on the outskirts of Goshen Falls. She lives there with her cat. The tales that goes round in Goshen Falls about her were quite frightening. They believe she is a sorceress and did something awful to a boy named Tommy. From her looks it is impossible to tell her age. Though she is kind of pretty, she always wears black. Even her lipstick and nail-polish were always black. Though the children were dead scared of this mysterious woman, that never stops them from playing mischief on her.

The story of Chicken Chicken by R. L. Stine begins with children playing one such trick on Vanessa. They pour water in her mailbox. No sooner do they empty their pitchers into her mailbox, Vanessa comes out. Her cold and angry gaze first falls on Crystal, who is only an witness to the misdeed and has no involvement in it. Their next encounter with Vanessa happens in front of the grocery shop. 

While playing among themselves the boys bump into Vanessa. Her grocery bag falls on the street. Everyone except Crystal and Cole runs away. The sheer horror of the incident freezes them. They simply stand there cowering under the cold stare of Vanessa. It is then that Vanessa points her finger at them and pronounces the words – Chicken Chicken. She does it in a way as if to cast a spell.

Chicken Chicken by R. L. Stine is the 53^rd book in his famous Goosebumps series.  Like so many other Goosebumps books, this book has frequent plot twists that makes it impossible to predict how the book was going to end. Even the last line of this book fills you with uneasy anticipation.  The places and the characters are so simply yet so vividly projected that you get a sensation almost akin to reading a graphic novel. I believe young readers will definitely enjoy reading Chicken Chicken by R. L. Stine.

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You Can’t Scare Me by R. L. Stine Review

You Can’t Scare Me by R. L. Stine is the story about four school kids – Eddie, Hat, Charlene and Molly – who take it as their mission to scare Courtney, who seems to be the bravest girl in their class. On a field trip Courtney makes fun of Eddie, first with a green snake then with a couple of Bumblebees. Eddie, who is much humiliated, decides to take revenge on Courtney. With his other friends he makes elaborate plans to frighten Courtney.

Courtney, as they soon find out, is not someone to be terrified easily. They put a rubber snake into her lunch bag and end up instead scaring the living daylight out of their teacher. With great difficulties they are able to acquire a living tarantula, but even that plan backfired. They try to scare Courtney with Molly’s dog Buttercup. That too fails. Eddie ends up being chased by Courtney’s own dog and Buttercup, to their surprise, becomes absolutely tame before Courtney. Perhaps, it is impossible to spook Courtney – they concluded. Then a new opportunity presents itself quite unexpectedly. One day Courtney confesses in the class that she believes that monsters exist. Eddie is overjoyed. He colludes with his older brother Kevin to hatch a terrible plot – to raise the Mud Monsters.

You Can’t Scare Me by R. L. Stine is a short horror novel for young readers. Unlike Stephen King novels that are lengthy and usually have complicated plots, the Goosebumps books are brief and pretty straight forward. There is limited number of characters so it is easy to track them. They are the kind of fast paced stories with unexpected twists that make you delay your lunch just a bit. You Can’t Scare Me by R. L. Stine which is the 15^th Book in Goosebumps horrors, is particularly suitable for children because of its simplicity.

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Stay Out of The Basement by R. L. Stine Book Review

Stay Out of The Basement by R. L. Stine is the story of a scientist Dr. Brewer who, after he got fired from PolyTech, decided to continue his research on his own. He set up his lab in the basement of his house and started spending most of his time there. The children, Margaret and Casey, were forbidden to go inside the basement. When Mrs. Brewer’s sister was hospitalised, she decided to go and take care of her. Mr. Brewer went to see her off to the airport. In his absence Margaret, Casey and their friend Diane ventured inside the basement.

The basement, as they found out, was full with strange plants. Some of those plants seemed to breathe audibly. To their shock, one of the trees stretched out its branch and caught Casey in its tendrils. After rescuing Casey, the children managed to return to their house before their father was back. Then Casey discovered that he left his T-shirt back in the basement. So he went there once again. That’s when they were caught. 

That made Dr. Brewer very upset. It was then that he thought it was time to tell the children about his research. He explained that the objective of his research was to make a completely new kind of plant – a plant that was part animal. He explained that he had been re engineering the DNA into something much more advanced.

This time he not only asked the children to Stay Out of The Basement but also placed a lock on the basement door. His explanations, however, did little to satisfy the children. Moreover, Dr. Brewer seemed to grow more distant day by day. One day Margaret watched his father swallowing from a bag. She later fished out the bag from the garbage can and found out it was plant food, some fertiliser. The children began to suspect something big – something that their father was hiding from them. The story only gets more complicated from here. It seemed that there was much more in the basement that Dr. Brewer actually wanted to reveal.

Stay Out of The Basement by R. L. Stine is the second in the famous Goosebumps series books. It is not only a horror story but there is also some element of science fiction. The research that the reserved, slightly eccentric scientist Dr. Brewer did in his basement went out of control and produced something that was not only an aberration but also a threat to himself and his family. This brief novel can be completed in about an hour. The fast paced horror Stay Out of The Basement by R. L. Stine, has unexpected twists in every chapter.

Monster Blood (Goosebumps Book 3) by R. L. Stine

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Monster Blood by R. L. Stine Review

Monster Blood by R. L. Stine is the 3^rd book in Goosebumps series. When Mr. And Mrs. Ross had to go to Atlanta to search for a house there, they leave their twelve year old son, Evan under the care of aunt Kathryn, who is stone deaf, albeit a kind lady. Evan was given a room filled with old, dusty books on biology, medicine, ancient alchemy and magic. Any communication with Kathryn was mostly one-directional. She’s not only deaf, but also hasn’t learned sign language. She makes terrible jokes and laughs at her own jokes even though Evan hardly ever finds them funny. The sort of conversation they usually have is Kathryn giving away instructions to Evan. Moreover, Kathryn has a strange black cat called Sarabeth. Kathryn says Sarabeth is pure evil. Evil or not, the cat certainly has a weird way of sneaking into places where it is least expected.

One day, when Evan takes his dog Trigger for a walk, he meets Andy, an extremely pretty girl. They become friends instantly. They walk up to a local toy store where among other things Evan finds a can with a label saying: Monster Blood, Surprising Miracle Substance. Curious, Evan buys the stuff for two dollars. He brings it to the Kathryn’s and places it in a closet in his room. 

Soon he realises that the sticky, green substance is growing in size. Every time Evan puts the Monster Blood in a bigger container, the fluid overflows. To make the matter worse, Trigger swallows bit of Monster Blood. Evan soon discovers that people around him has layers of secrets buried inside them. Even Kathryn and her cat Sarabeth are not as ordinary as they appear to be. But those secrets are not revealed till the last few pages of the book.

Monster Blood by R. L. Stine is filled with strange people and stuffs. There are surprising twists and revelations. The strange behaviour of Kathryn and her cat remains unexplained till the end of the story. Strange stuffs, spells, magic and witches are parts of the story. Like other books in Goosebumps series, Monster Blood by R. L. Stine is meant for young readers. The story is brief, written in simple English – takes about an hour to finish the book.

Say Cheese and Die (Goosebumps Book 4) by R. L. Stine

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I Live in Your Basement by R. L. Stine

The story of I Live in Your Basement by R. L. Stine starts when after an accident at the softball game Marco, a twelve year old, is admitted to hospital with a massive head injury. Under observation of Dr. Bailey, Marco recovers quickly and was taken back home, where he receives a call from an unknown person called Keith. Keith tells him, he lives in Marco’s basement and wants Marco to take care of him for the rest of his life. This strange call turns Marco’s life upside down. Back at the school, when he was asked about his hospital days, Marco to his utter surprise discovers that he has no memory whatsoever of the hospital.

Keith, the boy from the basement keeps showing up in their house. Sometimes Marco hears him whisper threateningly. His mother believes he was imagining things. It worries her. She takes him to Dr. Bailey. Marco confides everything to the doctor. Far from solving the problem, their visit to the hospital only aggravates Marco’s anxiety. Later it appeared that Gwynnie whom Marco believed was the one who hit him with the baseball bat was not even present in the playground on that fateful day. He learns that it was Jeremy, his best friend who swung the bat.

Every time Marco dozes off to sleep, he wakes up into a different version of the story. In his sleep he dreams about the incident, about Gwynnie and Jeremy, and about Keith. His dreams are nightmares and everytime he wakes up he finds himself in another nightmare. Each time the dream only gets scarier. Soon Marco loses track of everything. He doesn’t know what is real anymore. All this time, the boy Keith who lives in Marco’s basement follows him like a shadow. In the story Marco wakes up in his bed several times as his nightmare runs in an endless loop. The plot twist in the final chapter catches you by surprise and rips the reality into shreds.

I Live in Your Basement by R. L. Stine is the 61^st book in Goosebumps series. It stands out from other Goosebumps books because of its capacity to play with your mind. The reason behind our obsessions with reality is that it is a stable and secure place where things are under control – our control. What happens when your dreams invade the reality? What happens when you realise you can’t control your reality anymore? It frightens us to even imagine such a thing. On more than one ocassion, R. L. Stine’s story I Live in Your Basement makes you shift uneasily in your chair.

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Welcome to Dead House by R. L. Stine

Welcome to Dead House by R. L. Stine is the story of a house in the shady little town of Dark Falls. After the Benson family received the news that they inherited the house through a will of some uncle, they decided to move to Dark Falls. Amanda and Josh – the children – hated it from the moment they laid their eyes on the house. Even their pet terrier Petey seemed to hate the place. It started behaving in a strange unfriendly way. Once it even ran away all the way to the cemetery. Soon after they settled in their new home, Amanda began to feel the presence of somebody else in the house – a boy – that she caught staring down at them from her own room. Then she met another girl at the staircase, smiling menacingly at Amanda. Her parents dismissed it as her imagination. May be it was all her imagination indeed – she forced herself to believe.

While their parents were still unpacking, Amanda and Josh went for a stroll around the neighbourhood and met Ray, a neighbourhood boy, who took them to the playground near school. There they met some more children. They became friends. Some those children told Amanda that they once lived in the same house she was living now. For some reason, that disturbed Amanda. Petey continued giving them a hard time. Josh still took Petey with him everywhere. But now it had to be put under leash.

Then one day, Petey went missing.

Amanda and Josh searched the neighbourhood till they themselves were lost. They couldn’t find their way back till they reached the school. From there they ran to their house. Petey hadn’t returned there either. Their parents were invited by some neighbour to a party. So they left. Soon it occurred to Josh that Petey might be in the cemetery; because that was the first place the dog ran away to when they arrived here. Armed with a Flashlight Amanda and Josh went to the cemetery. From here the story took a scary turn. It was there among the gravestones that they would find out the unnerving truth about Dark Falls and its people.

R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series are already much popular among kids. These stories are short, written in simple decent English - that is ideal for young readers. Often the main protagonists in these books are children themselves. Though Stephen King is a much celebrated writer of Horrors, his stories are more suitable for adult readers. Welcome to Dead House and other books in Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine is written primarily for children. It is unlikely that an adult already familiar with King’s literature would find this book scary. Nevertheless, Welcome to Dead House will be a great read to its targeted readers – the children.

Stay Out of The Basement (Goosebumps Book 2) by R. L. Stine

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