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The Barking Ghost

1995R. L. Stine

2.7/5

And to my horror, I realized that this time the barking wasn't outside my window.This time is was coming from inside my house!Sigh. This is one of the stupidest Goosebumps books I have ever read. Cooper Holmes and his jerk older brother Mickey have moved to a new house in the Maine woods.And then I learned that our new house was deep in the woods, somewhere in Maine. Miles from the nearest town.The only two scary books I'd ever read took place in Maine. In the woods.Woot, shout-out from Stine to Stephen King! I love when he does this.Anyway, Cooper is a scaredy-cat. In this book, he is frightened by the following things: Branches.A leaf.A garden hose.A sprinkler.A bunny rabbit.A bird.It's pathetic. I found myself really struggling to respect this character, who is just so weak and scared all the time. Then, his older brother Mickey seems to be on a campaign to scare Cooper. Mickey hides under his bed and grabs Cooper, staggers through woods covered in fake blood, records screams and turns the tape on in Cooper's room at night... etc. etc. Things that would actually scare normal people.But my question is: why does Mickey even bother? Cooper is scaring himself constantly. I mean, he's freaking out at every rustle of the trees and creak of the roof. Why the hell would you waste time and energy trying to scare this kid? It seemed not only mean-spirited, but dumb and a complete waste of time.Cooper meets a little girl his age in the woods, a redhead named Fergie. "Like the Duchess," she says.For a girl, Fergie ran pretty fast. Actually, most girls I know are fast runners.Whoever said they were slower runners than boys in the first place? It isn't true. Lots of girls in my class last year could beat any guy in a race.Love this little bit of feminism, Stine.Anyway, Fergie is pretty much off her rocker, as far as I can tell. For one thing, she has a habit of screaming out "Dogs!" and then claiming she has no idea that she even said that. Also, she plays a really mean trick on Cooper when he first moves in. I don't know, she's just very wacky and unpredictable, but Cooper seems to like her. *shrug*Then we have the horror plot, which is one of the most moronic things I have ever heard of. There are two ghost black Labrador retrievers who haunt the woods near Cooper's house. They have glowing red eyes. Okay, that's cool. I'm with you so far. But then it turns out that (view spoiler)[they are people (not stated whether kids or adults) who had an evil spell cast on them 100 years ago to roam the woods as ghost dogs. What. They lead the kids to a shack they call "The Changing Room" and force them inside. What. There the kids undergo a body switch in which they are now ghost dogs and the people who were under the spell have taken over the children's bodies, to live out their lives as "Cooper" and "Fergie." (hide spoiler)]
Picture of a book: The Barking Ghost

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