Books

It's Gonna be a Scream!Courtney is a total show-off. She thinks she's so brave and she's always making Eddie and his friends look like wimps.But now Eddie's decided he's had enough. He's going to scare Courtney once and for all. And he's just come up with the perfect plan. He's going to lure Courtney down to Muddy Creek. Because Eddie knows Courtney believes in that silly rumor about the monsters. Mud Monsters that live in the creek.Too bad Eddie doesn't believe the rumor.Because it just might be true....Reader beware-you're in for a scare!

DEAD...OR ALIVE?After last year's scary adventure, Gabe's a little nervous about being back in Egypt. Back near the ancient pyramids. Back where he saw all of those creepy mummies. Then he learns about an Egyptian superstition. A secret chant that is supposed to bring mummies to life. Gabe's uncle says it's just a hoax. But now it sounds like something's moving in the mummy's tomb.No way a couple of dumb words can wake the dead. Can they?

Nope, impossible, nope, I'm sorry. Can't happen. Nope. Chapter 9 ruined the book for me. The book was kind of slow for the first 8 chapters, chapter 9 was getting good and up until chapter ten starts with "That was my daydream" You don't grab the reader and lock them in for a good ride than let go and say ride over time to start from scratch. I skipped a few chapters to see if the book could grab my interest, but it couldn't, my trust in it was gone. I felt like if I were to be grabbed again it would be another dream. If it were introduced as a dream than fine, but its like a regular story, but at the start of a chapter its a dream. That ruins the momentum the book had. I hate being teased, this wasn't a teaser it was a displeaser. In an earlier book it happened twice in one book and it got me angry. This book was also a flashback, another thing I hate in books. This book had two things that I dislike most about books. I had no choice but to stop reading at chapter ten.

They're baa-ack! Make way for the bestselling children's series of all time! With a fresh new look, GOOSEBUMPS is set to scare a whole new generation of kids. So reader beware--you're in for a scare!Right brain. Wrong body. Gary Lutz needs a vacation . . . from himself. Bullies are constantly beating him up. His only friend is his computer. Even his little sister doesn't like him. But now Gary's dream is about to come true. He's going to exchange bodies with another kid for a whole week. Gary can't wait to get a new body. Until something horrible happens. And Gary finds out his new body isn't exactly human . . . .Book Details: \ Format: Paperback \ Publication Date: 4/1/2005 \ Pages: 144 \ Reading Level: Age 7 and Up

Well, THAT was interesting. No, I'm serious, I enjoyed it.Hannah is a 12-year-old girl living with her family in a small town. It's summer and she's bored. Her two younger twin brothers, age 6, are wild and crazy and take up all her parents' time and attention. She must find ways to amuse herself in the long, hot, summer months. Ever hear the phrase, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop?" Hannah meets the boy next door, a 12-year-old named Danny with red hair and freckles. He's moved into the old Dodson house. That's strange - it's sat empty for years. And Hannah never saw any moving van or people inside the house. Danny claims he's in her grade at her school, but she doesn't know him or any of his friends.Nevertheless, she becomes friends with Danny. Unfortunately, Danny hangs out with a bad crowd. His "friends" Alan and Fred are always daring him to do things and encouraging him to steal and pull pranks. Hannah often spies on the boys and spies on Danny and his activities - ostensibly because she suspects he might be a ghost, but I think she has a tiny crush on him - and sees how the boys treat him and goad him into criminal behavior.To add onto all of this, there is a shadowy dark phantom with glowing red eyes that keeps following her around and warning her to stay away from Danny. No one can see it but her. Who is it? What does it want?...In a shocking surprise twist, we realize that (view spoiler)[ Hannah is the ghost, not Danny. She died in a house fire 5 years ago, and she and her whole family are dead. I think she's here to save Danny... he and his thug friends end up setting fire to a crotchety old man's home and she saves Danny's life by helping him escape from the burning building.I liked Hannah's slow realization that she's the one who's dead - not Danny - and the way she amps up her courage by saying, "I'm a ghost, I can do this, I can't die again, these flames can't really hurt me." It must be hard for her, but she is very brave. (hide spoiler)]

All locked up and no place to go!Sue and her brother, Eddie, are visiting London when they run into a little problem. They can't find their tour group. Still, there's no reason to panic. No way their tour guide would just leave them. All alone. In a gloomy old prison tower.No way they'd get locked inside. After dark. With those eerie sounds. And a strange dark figure who wants them . . . dead.

Make a WishSamantha Byrd is a klutz. An accident waiting to happen. She's the laughing stock of the girls basketball team. And that mean, rotten Judith Bellwood is making her life miserable on and off the court.But everything's about to change.Sam's met someone who can grant her three wishes. For real. Too bad Sam wasn't careful what she wished for. Because her wishes are coming trueAnd they're turning her life into a living nightmare!

He's no superhero.... He's a supervillain!Skipper Matthews has an awesome comic book collection. His favorite one is called The Masked Mutant. It's about an evil supervillain who's out to rule the universe!Skipper can't get enough of The Mutant. Until one day he gets lost in a strange part of town. And finds a building that looks exactly like The Mutant's secret headquarters. A building that appears and disappears!Has Skipper read one too many comic books? Or does The Masked Mutant really live in Riverview Falls?

When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist's dummy in a Dumpster, Lindy decides to "rescue" it, and she names it Slappy. But Kris is green with envy. It's not fair. Why does Lindy get to have all the fun and all the attention? Kris decides to get a dummy of her own. She'll show Lindy. Then weird things begin to happen. Nasty things. Evil things. It can't be the dummy causing all the trouble, Can it?

And it made me wish that I had never opened that cabinet, never reached under the sink, and never found the spongy... thing.Because now it was too late.Too late for us all.This book is severely creepy. I was creeped out by it as a child and I still am upon this re-reading. Kat and her little brother Daniel move to a new house. There, they discover something under the kitchen sink. Something that looks like an old, dry brown sponge. But they soon notice that it is warm. And pulsing. And has beady little eyes. And people start getting hurt - their dad falls off a ladder, Daniel's friend steps on a nail, etc.It turns out that the sponge is a Grool - a bad luck charm that brings pain and misery to whoever "owns" it. However, you cannot give away the Grool (or throw it away) or you will die in 24 hours. And even though they try their hardest to destroy it (running over it with their bikes, throwing it in the garbage disposal, burying it in the backyard) the Grool always snaps back. Can they ever get this evil thing out of their lives?...Dark, creepy, sinister - this is one of the scarier Goosebumps novels (even though the premise sounds ridiculous). I would put it right up there with the Living Dummy Subset in scariness levels.P.S. The dog, a cocker spaniel, is named Killer.P.P.S. R.L. Stine is always creating kids with unique and adult tastes. Here, we have Kat, who likes lasagna, really sour garlic pickles, and mocha-chip ice cream.

They're baa-ack! Make way for the bestselling children's series of all time! With a fresh new look, GOOSEBUMPS is set to scare a whole new generation of kids. So reader beware--you're in for a scare! When dummies speak . . . everybody listens! Trina O'Dell's dad used to have a ventriloquist act. That's why he has all those dummies in the attic. He calls it his Dummy Museum. There's a dummy with freckles. And one with a sneer just like Rocky. Trina and her brother, Dan, think the dummies are pretty cool. But now there are voices in the attic. And dummies keep showing up in the strangest places. No way those dummies could be alive! Right?

Two Heads Are Better Than One!What has two eyes, a mouth, and wrinkly green skin? Mark's shrunken head. It's a present from his Aunt Benna. A gift from the jungle island of Baladora.Mark can't wait to show the kids at school his shrunken head. It's so ugly. So gross. So awesome. But late one night the head starts to glow. Because it's no ordinary head. It gives Mark a strange power. A magical power. A dangerous power....

They're baa-ack! Make way for the bestselling children's series of all time! With a fresh new look, GOOSEBUMPS is set to scare a whole new generation of kids. So reader beware--you're in for a scare! Camp is supposed to be fun, but Sarah hates Camp Cold Lake. The lake is gross and slimy. And she's having a little trouble with her bunkmates. They hate her. So Sarah comes up with a plan. She'll pretend to drown -- then everyone will feel sorry for her. But things don't go exactly the way Sarah planned. Because down by the cold, dark lake someone is watching her. Stalking her. Someone with pale blue eyes. And a see-through body. . . .

They're baa-ack! Make way for the bestselling children's series of all time! With a fresh new look, GOOSEBUMPS is set to scare a whole new generation of kids. So reader beware--you're in for a scare!They've got a real head start . . . .Everyone knows about Hill House. It's the biggest tourist attraction in town. That's because it's haunted. Haunted by the ghost of a thirteen-year-old boy. A boy with no head!Duane and Stephanie love Hill House. It's dark. And creepy. And totally scary.Still, they've never actually seen the ghost. Until the night they decide to go on a search. A search for his head . . . .Book Details: \ Format: Paperback \ Publication Date: 10/1/2004 \ Pages: 144 \ Reading Level: Age 9 and Up

I stared up into his hideous face - and gasped.His eyes were deep, dark pools - with tiny worms swimming in them!Ew, nasty....Okay, this is a little different from regular Goosebumps books - the monster shows up early, about 55% of the way through the novel.Gretchen and her stepbrother Clark (I think this is the second Goosebumps books where there are divorced parents), are being unceremoniously dropped off at their grandma and grandpa's house in Georgia.They are shocked to find that their grandparents live in an honest to God mansion. A huge, stone mansion in the swamps of rural Georgia. There's no phone. No television. And no car. Grandpa's deaf. And Grandma loves to cook. A lot. So much that it's as if she's cooking for 50 people instead of just 4. Why does she cook so much food?...Honestly, the grandparents in here are HORRIBLE people. Horrible people. For one thing, they are hoarders. They tell the kids - you can explore the house. Anywhere in the house is fair game except for that one locked room. Okay. The kids find rooms packed with 50 years worth of newspapers. In another room they find stacks and stacks of old magazines, and the house appears to be infested with some serious cockroaches. Another room is filled with tons of rusty and broken toys.So. Already not good. Then the kids decide to play hide-and-seek. And while looking for Clark, Gretchen nearly plunges to her death on a staircase that has rotted through. Great - stellar child-care there. Just let your grandchildren run around your junk-filled, rotting-floor house. Brilliant.Then the kids open the locked room (of course they do!) only to find a huge kind of gorilla-alligator monster inside. Now the monster's loose and the kids (and dog - Golden Retriever named Charley) are running through the house for their lives.The grandparents are nowhere to be found. The kids see the grandparents pulling out of the driveway, leaving their grandchildren to their fates. Not to mention, the grandparents have nailed all the windows and doors shut, trapping the children inside the house.Wow. That is really cold.The kids then find two letters taped to the fridge, basically saying "Bye! Off to get help!" Wow, thanks, Grandma....The rest of the book is the kids battling the monster, which is pretty exciting. My favorite part is when they doctor grandma's pie with turpentine, drain cleaner, rat poison and ammonia.Tl;dr - The twist ending is a bit lame, but overall this book was pretty exciting and fast-paced. Definitely these grandparents win the "worst grandparents in history" award. Jeez Louise!

IT'S BAAACK...Evan Ross can't stop thinking about Monster Blood and what happened last summer. It was so horrible. So terrifying. Too bad Evan's science teacher doesn't believe him. Now he's stuck cleaning out the hamster's cage as punishment for making up stories.Then Evan's friend Andy comes to town, and things go from bad to worse. Because Andy's got a present for Evan. It's green and slimy and it's starting to grow....

THEY'RE CREEPY AND THEY'RE CRAWLY‑THEY'RE TOTALLY DISGUSTING!Obsessed with worms? That's putting it mildly. Todd is so fascinated with worms, he keeps a worm farm in his basement! Most of all, Todd loves torturing his sister and her best friend with worms. Dropping them in their hair. Down their backs.Until one day, after cutting a worm in half, Todd notices something strange. The rest of the worms seems to be staring at him! Suddenly worms start showing up in the worst places for Todd. In his bed. In his homework. Even in his spaghetti!What's a worm lover to do when his own worms are starting to gross him out?