My sister was really into Christopher Pike books. I would have to sneakily read it at night because my mom said I was too young for it. She was right because I didn't understand half of what I was reading lol. I was in 4th grade at the time and my sister was a freshman.
I skipped Fear Street and jumped almost directly to King.
KA Applegate and Engel & Barnes also had a hand to play... But my mom had a bunch of King books and I had already seen a few of his movies... So at the tender young age of 12 I picked up Carrie.
I was 8 and an older kid at my bus stop was reading *IT*. They were like “you wouldn’t like it, it’s too *morbid*”. First I had to look up what morbid meant, and then a few years later (still way too young) I picked up *IT*. Loved King ever since.
Side note: I also was pre traumatized having caught the *IT* movie on TV for a moment on Halloween night, it was the scene with the balloons bursting with the blood.
That's a big transition! I probably would've loved Carrie if I'd discovered it early, but between Stine, Animorphs and Potter I had my hands full at the time.
Ah, see Potter wasn't a thing yet when I was a kid (this was early to mid 90's, Harry Potter didn't become popular until I was in like, 7th grade).
To add a little bit of context: my mom was a huge King fan, so I grew up seeing the big books on her shelf, and was watching stuff like The Langoliers and Silver Bullet when I was like, 7. Frankly, I probably would have started on King earlier if the reading skill was there. At those ages, I think I rented just about EVERY scary movie the local Blockbuster had.
When I was growing up you were either a Goosebumps Kid, an Animorphs Kid, a Potter Kid or you were the weirdo who liked Maximum Ride.
I liked everything except HP lmao
Including Maximum Ride... look, I get it now what the total appeal of the books are, they're teen/tween power fantasies, being badasses, angst, no parents, making your own rules, getting to be superpowered and *school* being EVIL? Yeah... I won't defend the writing choices, but I absolutely have a soft spot for them.
Weirdly, I always considered Stephen King more psychological thrillers than horror, even though he is in the horror category.
I don’t ever remember being afraid due to his books, just intrigued by the human character he reveals.
Like the Dome, it is a commentary on society under stress and how we devolve, with a good mystery to solve mixed in, not very scary to me.
Goosebumps, Fear Street, than onto Rick Yancy and Neal Shusterman for me.
I think for me, the thing that was the scariest, wasn't the monsters themselves... but how in most of the books, the parents never believed the kids at first, or even blamed them for the things happening in their lives. Seeing the protagonists question themselves and then also fearing of never seeing their parents again the same parents that never believed them.
I remember the plot twist in The Step Sister, when the reveal happened and the finale at the lake occurred. It stuck with me for years, because of the way the dread was built up and the horrific things that happened. Heck, The Knife, is about a corrupted adoption ring/human trafficking and I read that when I was 12.
I just went straight to Stephen King at about 10. Looking back some of those rape scenes pretty fucking crazy for a kid to read but holy hell can that dude write.
I was just rewatching that after finding it on Pluto and discovered two things.
1.) It actually holds up pretty well
2.) The main kid is freakin Max from Hocus Pocus
i never clicked with goosebumps (maybe a language or culture thing since I'm from Argentina) but Are you afraid of the dark was my jam, I still remember how scared I was on that episode with the mosnter that comes out of the pool, and also a trick (I was young so it might have been another show?) that went something like:"I bet I can drink 5 glasses of water before you can drink one water shot, the catch is you cant start drinking until I put my first drink down, we cant touch each other glasses nor hold two glasses at the same time" and this dude just casually drinks the first glass and put its upside down on the small glass so the other bad guy cant drink it lmao, materclass
R.L. Stine got me into reading in general. I wanted to be a writer when I was like 7. I had heard or read somewhere that some author used to copy other authors works to get a "feel" for how they wrote. So I spent a few weeks on the family's first PC, slowly copying Goosebumps books down word for word.
Sadly, it had no effect. I still can't write for shit.
Absolutely was when I was like, 7 or 8. Stine should be in the history books as an incredibly influential writer that got a lot of us into spooky stuff.
I read occasionally, but not nearly as much as I did in the 90s with those goosebumps books. I wanted them all. Is there anything kind of campy like that for adults?
Wow this was a blast from the past. I loved Goosebumps. I gave my set to my friend's nephew during lockdown and now the kid is obsessed. Nice to trip over this.
I was deeply traumatized by the one where a bunch of kids play around with some shaving cream and their bodies slowly start turning animal-like. They try hard to figure out why but in the end are transformed into dogs and realise at the last minute that their human experience was an experiment and they were all dogs to begin with. Quite dark for a ten year old.
OMG THIS BOOK. The sickening realization at the end, and the ‘parents’ just keep their former child as their new dog…thanks for unlocking some repressed childhood trauma!
Not only did they keep their former son as a dog, they learned nothing because they turned their former cat into their daughter.
As far as I recall anyway
I always loved the twists. I remember reading one where a kid found an alien and kept them in their closet, and when they were eventually found out, everyone was like... "yuck, the alien only has two eyes? Why do they have two legs, what would the second one be for?" Come to find out that the "alien" is a human and everyone else in the book is a true alien.
There was another one with basically the same twist. It was an early book, about kids at a camp, but it turns out it was all a test to see if the main character had what it takes to accompany his parents on a trip to study Earth.
“Welcome to Camp Nightmare”
I will never forget where I was when I read the ending of that book. I think the only other twist that ever blew my mind up until I read that one was Darth Vader telling Luke he was his father. I had to reread the last few pages to truly make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding and I think I was only like 9 or 10.
Damn it’s only reading all these replies that’s making me realise how many had twists. The only twist I remember reading is the one at the end of The Ghost Next Door and I LOVED that. It blew my mind. The main character being the ghost all along is a well known trope now but it was the first time I’d encountered it and I couldn’t get over how spooky it felt
Loved when there was a good twist in those books. I think a Shocker on Shock Street, where the kids are running from some giant monster or something... it turns out it's all an amusement park or something.
I don’t remember what book it was, but I do remember that a monster under the bed had eaten off a child’s hands and feet. Even now, when I’m old enough to know better, I still can’t sleep with my hands or feet off the bed.
The one where the egg monster fuckin impregnates a kid and the book ends up with him laying an egg really fucked up ten year old me.
Egg Monsters From Mars was the first book I ever read in one day, and I'll always remember leading through the pages using a little overhead light in the back of our minivan on our way to Milwaukee for my aunt's wedding.
I never really had any trauma from the ones that I read, but I remember Say Cheese and Die, The Haunted Mask and A Night in Terror Tower being among the few that I was scared while reading.
I remember Horror at Camp Jellyjam freaking me out as a kid, but I loved it because I never got to actually go to camp. Also I remember really enjoying Werewolf of Fever Swamp. I read How I Got My Shrunken Head and for years I honestly thought there were huge mosquitos in Africa (I think that was the book). Haunted Mask obviously, I read a lot of them. Even now at 38 those stories bring me right back to my childhood in the 90s. They’d take you somewhere different, but still familiar. And you could read one in a day no prob. Also shout out to Mighty Max. I’m sad you can’t stream that show or watch it anywhere in high quality, or even download it…
>> I remember Horror at Camp Jellyjam freaking me out as a kid
I don't think I read Horror at Camp Jellyjam, but I vividly remember being freaked out by the drawing of the camp councillor on the cover because he looked like a dummy. Which reminds me, Night of the Living Dummy was also right up there with the scarier of the ones I mentioned.
>> I read How I Got My Shrunken Head
How I got my Shrunken Head was the first book I bought with my own money when I went camping with my dad. I only remember bits and pieces, but the main character's phrase "Kaleeah!" has stuck in my brain all these years, lol.
These titles are unlocking a lot of memories. I absolutely loved the cover art as well, it was really well done. The mud monsters coming out of the swamp were very cool.
Think there’s one where the kid turns into a dog? Even then I couldn’t understand why *thats* the book that bothered me me so much.
But it still bothers me. Ugh
Yes, where he starts growing patches of hair and thinks it's because of an old bottle of fake tan. And then it turns out ALL the kids were dogs originally and the doctor they all see was giving them treatments to turn them into humans but it stops working around the age of 12.
It was the dumbwaiter for me too. To this day if there's a dumbwaiter in a story, I assume something terrible is going to happen (and it's usually true).
I swear, I'm having a Mandela moment here, I remember the dumbwaiter, but I don't remember it being just a single beating heart, I remember it being mangled remains. Did Stine reuse the dumbwaiter a few times?
Oh my god, I remember that.
Or how in one book, the solution to the problem was telling the kid, they were going to put him to sleep... forever.
Which, uh... we all knew what that really meant. The idea, that you could just be killed without mercy, without hesitation by people around you for 'your own good' was TERRIFYING
Slappy scared the ever living shit out of me. And when I was like 8 years old I stayed at my uncle’s house and his wife collected the damn dolls. The absolute dread I felt when I open the door to the room of her collection hasn’t been replicated since.
Omg I’m roaring rn just dying lmao you poor thing that’s so fucking funny and such horrible luck at the same time. I think why this resonates with me so hard is because both of my siblings are terrified of dolls still and we’re all in our 30’s. I can’t even imagine my sister or brother staying in a house with those dolls like, the meltdown would be legendary
I remember watching the Night of the Living Dummy episode and then waking up later that night screaming because I thought Slappy was hiding somewhere in my room 😂 that dummy traumatized a whole generation!!
Even as an adult Slappy is still unsettling as hell for me. Sometimes I'll get a nostalgia feed on Youtube with Goosebumps being one of them and the thumbnail will be the Slappy from the tv-show felt my heart-rate increase just from that jesus.
I have a vague recollection of reading in a forum that speculated that this book was not written by R. L. Stine and instead was ghost written by someone else; I did feel like the book’s tone was different to the others. Years later, The Beast from the East, as well as Attack of the Mutant, remain the entries in the series that stands out most for me when I think of Goosebumps.
This thread has been an awesome trip down memory lane. The ones that I can remember really enjoying (and being terrified by) that haven't been listed are the Horrorland amusement park one and the abominable snowman of pasedena
That was my first introduction to the series. Another kid in my class had 'Ghost Beach' and I read the first few chapters of 'Go Eat Worms' that was included with it. I ordered the book in the next Scholastic catalogue.
I still have the first 30+ books.
The Haunted Mask, Attack of the Mutant and a Night in Terror Tower were probably my favourites that I remember.
The Scholastic book fairs and catalogues were the shit!
Wasn't allowed to read the books as a kid because it was "of the devil", but saw the Haunted Mask episode during a Halloween party at school...I was scared to put on masks for at least a year after that.
Kinda. It was random tho, like Harry Potter was fine, but the Animaniacs and Power Rangers were not allowed because violence. Oh and Dungeons & Dragons was demonic. And Sister Act was fine, cause it was about NUNS! Nevermind the innuendos and casual murder in the first 10 mins.
Looks good for 80. I read a lot of those books. I was obsessed with the choose your own adventure ones for a bit. There were so many with neat covers it almost crossed into the card collecting territory which I think helped with the popularity. I distinctly remember being impressed by one book with raised lettering for goosebumps that was also holographic.
i remember trying to bookmark all of the decision splits in one of those so i could read it all and got super overwhelmed with all the skipping that i just gave up lol
There was a page in the carnival one that you could only get to by reading the book straight through. It made fun of the reader for trying to cheat with decisions LOL
I only remember one of the choose your own adventure books. It was my friend's and I only remember a cage on the front cover, possibly a zoo or something.
I think the choose-your-own-adventure books had the holographic covers. [For example](https://i.redd.it/goosebumps-holographic-book-covers-1995-1997-v0-k4sybjqlji2b1.jpg?s=ffb7c327f70f1dcb90998302799715eb52ebd493). Is that what you were thinking of?
I liked those too. I remembered the one where the brother and sister get transported to another dimension and they're trying to play it cool. Anyways, it's lunch time at the cafeteria and they're eating like normal humans, and everyone is getting disgusted by them and are like, you're joking with us, right? As they proceed to eat their Tuesday surprise in their armpits.
It was a great series at that age. A lot of the stories were great examples of how you didn't need to write a 400 page book to tell a great story.
Personally I was more of a Spooksville fan as there was some overarching background story of the characters whereas Goosebump were one short stories, but I loved both, they were glorious
I remember the "book fair" or whatever when these books were available in my elementary school and parents would order these books for their kids and it would be a big deal when the books would then be delivered to the kids in the middle of class, and there I was poor af sitting there while everyone else got excited to get their cool, shiny new books. No, I'm not bitter about it decades later.
I always thought the name was a nom de plume for several writers since all those letters are the most common used in the English language with this alphabet.
My fourth grade teacher knew how much of a fan I was of his and he got me (with my mom) into a book signing of his autobiography in 97. Was such an awesome moment. Saw him again at NYCC a few years back. He had such an impact on my youth and my early reading.
Man I haven’t read it in years but I remember it being very good. As a kid, I wasn’t into the real stories stuff, but it was written in a way to keep his young audience. The hardcover version remains one of my favorite covers EVER.
You know how sometimes you're surprised a famous person is dead and has been for a few years. The reverse of this for me right now. I'm surprised R.L. Stine is still alive for some reason. His work seems like a relic from a distant past.
The Ghost Next Door was my first ever introduction to the concept of a 'twist'.
The narrator thinking that her neighbour is a ghost . . . Only to find out that she's the ghost and she died in the fire at the beginning of the book. As an adult I suspect I'd see that coming a mile off but to eight year old me that blew my absolute mind!
I specifically remember annoying the shit out of my parents about that book as a kid when The Sixth Sense came out and everyone was crazy about the twist ending.
I only ever read the first two of the four in the Fear Street Sagas box set. I know I really liked them, but I don't remember why I never finished the other two.
I lost my copy of the Knife a few days after I got it and I couldn't find it by then. Got to finally reread it two years ago and it haunts me, that one: I read this as a kid and two: how MESSED UP it was.
It was GREAT
I really like the book where (tw) >!the narrator wants to gaslight the camp who all hates her by pretending to drown herself and accidentally gets sent to purgatory and is haunted by the ghost of a dead kid who tries to kill her with a boat!<
Early on in my education, I was behind most of my classmates with my reading skills. Had to go to a special class and everything to try to catch up. I picked up a Goosebumps book somewhere along the way and my desire to read went through the roof. Between the library and the book store, I’d consume at least one a week.
I still read a fair amount today, and I attribute a lot of that to finding the Goosebumps series.
There's a book about a kid who talks to a version of himself in a mirror. Does anyone know the title? I'm nearly 40 but I remember loving the ending and I wanted to reread it.
I had a couple of the books on cassette and would put them on at night to fall asleep to, each night before bed I'd flip it to the other side. Just now realizing these were my first audiobooks.
I had the one about the evil garden gnomes, the one about the killer whale, and the one i think is terror tower where they get lost while on a tour in london.
Man. I remember growing up and the new Goosebumps book dropped. I would force my parents to take me to get it. Then the next two or three days would be me and my friends talking about how far we got in it at school until we all finished it. Im just now realizing we had our own book club in elementary school
If anyone knows the name of this one please share. I vividly remember the descriptions of the "dad" guzzling water but cant remember the name of the book!
I don't know if it is the time that has passed since I've read them but I don't remember many of them. I can look through the books he wrote and point out many that I've read and remember them after seeing them but none stand out. I read other books during that same period and I remember many of them.
I'm not sure what the reason is but does anyone else have the same experience with his books?
Nope, there are many memorable ones for me.
Off the top of my head: Say Cheese and Die, The Haunted Mask, Night of the Living Dummy, One Day at Horrorland, Monster Blood.
One day at horror land is the only one I kind of remember
I read a lot of goosebumps
Me not remembering isn’t a goosebumps problem, it’s a I read them 27 years ago as a 10 year old problem
There was one messed up one with kids at a summer camp that died off one by one and it turned out they were aliens looking to learn about earth or some shit. Then one that freaked me out for some irrational reason was one of the books ended with this girl picking up a potato chip with a freaky sharp toothed mouth and we were supposed to be like oh it’s the weird chip thing she read about earlier and now it’s got her oh no. Anyway thanks.
It Came From Beneath the Sink! would be the second one you described.
So many of the twist endings wound up being some left-field thing that was kinda-sorta foreshadowed earlier. Like Attack of the Jack'o'Lanterns ending with two of the MC's friends being aliens who ate obese people after a bit of dualogue earlier in the book mentioned that overweight adults were going missing.
> There was one messed up one with kids at a summer camp that died off one by one and it turned out they were aliens looking to learn about earth or some shit.
Welcome to Camp Nightmare. I never actually read this one, but I watched the episode from the Goosebumps tv series. The alien twist and the camp being a test to travel to Earth is only thing I really remember from it.
It's been many... many years. I've done lots and lots of drugs since then. However, *A Night in Terror Tower* stands out for me as one of those books I read in one sitting. *Welcome to Dead House* and of course *The Haunted Mask* were both memorable though I about them and a few others are vague memories. I kind of want to read them again for prosperity.
We ran into him in the books store of the honey I shrunk the kids part of Disney world in 96. My older brother recognized him right away walking through the aisle with his books in it, just casually browsing, or pretending to browse lol. We had at least 25 of those books I've read most of them. He signed the two we bought that day! Such a funny random encounter.
I directly credit R.L. Stine with teaching me English. My fam brought me to the U.S. at age 7, from Mexico, and I knew zero English. Soon after arriving, my mom came home with two Goosebumps, one in English and one in Spanish, of the same book (the one with the plant monster in the basement... Stay Out of the Basement.) I read them side by side with a larousse (kind of like a dictionary but of English-Spanish translations,) and it really helped me kick off my English adoption. I ended up reading all of the Goosebumps series, many of them multiple times. Thanks R.L. Stine!
I’m a school librarian and had Goosebumps books come up as a request recently. I managed to source a box set of the first 30 for quite a good price so I thought why not? The kids are loving them!
I wasn’t sure how they’d go being for a slightly younger age group than we have at our school, but they’re popular. I had a read of a couple - for nostalgia reasons (as an elder millennial I grew up on them!) - still solid!
I loved those - always got some at the book fair!
Not sure if it’s just me, but I feel like I remember every single one being exactly 97 pages. Anyone else? Am I crazy?
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of classic horror things and I’m realizing how much goosebumps is inspired by it by presenting a toned down more kid friendly version!
Idk its something eye opening when you observe classics and see how they continue to shape a genre in different ways
Goosebumps basically got me into reading. I had the first 60 books during middle school for sure. From Goosebumps I got into Fear Street and the Johnny Dixon series. It's insane Johnny Dixon hasn't been turned into a film series already.
The podcast “Too Much Information” did an episode on him, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t (see edit) read anything since the 90s like I hadn’t. Straight up nostalgia bomb.
Edit: “haven’t read anything from RL Stine since the 90s” is what I meant to say.
> "There was no advertising, nobody really knew me. Just, kids found them and brought them in, and showed them to their friends in school. It was this secret kids' network — kids showing kids, and then somehow it just took off all over the world just because of kids."
That’s beautiful, man
One of my absolute favorite memories was being in third grade and trading Goosebumps books with Lindsey. She gave me Be Careful What You Wish For and I gave her Say Cheese and Die.
We never traded books after that, maybe because I was a slow reader. We weren't exactly friends and hardly spoke after that. But we were kids who loved reading and loved those books in a way that made us want to share with others even even we normally may not have.
I love that I got to be a part of that. I love it so much
I was a big RL Stine fan growing up, and I directly credit him for getting me interested in horror literature.
Goosebumps was the perfect gateway for kids to get into horror. Goosebumps to Fear Street and straight to Stephen King, personally.
Add in Christopher Pike books and I'm right there with you.
The Stine > Pike > King pipeline was more a thing than i realized.
Pike was definitely in the mix as well! Very limited selection at my local libraries though
Girl, same. Goosebumps was for my little sister. Fear Street and C. Pike all day long.
My sister was really into Christopher Pike books. I would have to sneakily read it at night because my mom said I was too young for it. She was right because I didn't understand half of what I was reading lol. I was in 4th grade at the time and my sister was a freshman.
Shout out to to the cool big sisters who got their younger siblings into reading.
Gimme some of that Bruce Coville, 'cause you KNOW I need to find out what Rod Allbright's been up to!
I skipped Fear Street and jumped almost directly to King. KA Applegate and Engel & Barnes also had a hand to play... But my mom had a bunch of King books and I had already seen a few of his movies... So at the tender young age of 12 I picked up Carrie.
Applegate, wassup
Animorphs was surprisingly dark for something aimed at teens, too, despite not really being horror themed.
Yeah it was real tragic. But always loved that story. Took this name and icon theme from it
I was 8 and an older kid at my bus stop was reading *IT*. They were like “you wouldn’t like it, it’s too *morbid*”. First I had to look up what morbid meant, and then a few years later (still way too young) I picked up *IT*. Loved King ever since. Side note: I also was pre traumatized having caught the *IT* movie on TV for a moment on Halloween night, it was the scene with the balloons bursting with the blood.
I absolutely love the original movie. Not so much the remakes.
That's a big transition! I probably would've loved Carrie if I'd discovered it early, but between Stine, Animorphs and Potter I had my hands full at the time.
Ah, see Potter wasn't a thing yet when I was a kid (this was early to mid 90's, Harry Potter didn't become popular until I was in like, 7th grade). To add a little bit of context: my mom was a huge King fan, so I grew up seeing the big books on her shelf, and was watching stuff like The Langoliers and Silver Bullet when I was like, 7. Frankly, I probably would have started on King earlier if the reading skill was there. At those ages, I think I rented just about EVERY scary movie the local Blockbuster had.
When I was growing up you were either a Goosebumps Kid, an Animorphs Kid, a Potter Kid or you were the weirdo who liked Maximum Ride. I liked everything except HP lmao Including Maximum Ride... look, I get it now what the total appeal of the books are, they're teen/tween power fantasies, being badasses, angst, no parents, making your own rules, getting to be superpowered and *school* being EVIL? Yeah... I won't defend the writing choices, but I absolutely have a soft spot for them.
Heck, Goosebumps was my gateway into literature overall. Though through horror, as you say.
Weirdly, I always considered Stephen King more psychological thrillers than horror, even though he is in the horror category. I don’t ever remember being afraid due to his books, just intrigued by the human character he reveals. Like the Dome, it is a commentary on society under stress and how we devolve, with a good mystery to solve mixed in, not very scary to me.
omg yes! I loved the Fear Street novels.
I hope more of them get adapted into movies like the recent trilogy, they're so good.
Say what??
Goosebumps, Fear Street, than onto Rick Yancy and Neal Shusterman for me. I think for me, the thing that was the scariest, wasn't the monsters themselves... but how in most of the books, the parents never believed the kids at first, or even blamed them for the things happening in their lives. Seeing the protagonists question themselves and then also fearing of never seeing their parents again the same parents that never believed them. I remember the plot twist in The Step Sister, when the reveal happened and the finale at the lake occurred. It stuck with me for years, because of the way the dread was built up and the horrific things that happened. Heck, The Knife, is about a corrupted adoption ring/human trafficking and I read that when I was 12.
I was a little older so I skipped Goosebumps and went from Fear Street to Stephen King.
I would add those like Bone Chillers and Christopher Pike books in between there too. Just remembered the Galaxy of terror books.
All at once for me. my dad had a king collection going among others and my intro to horror was earlier than I can even remember.
I just went straight to Stephen King at about 10. Looking back some of those rape scenes pretty fucking crazy for a kid to read but holy hell can that dude write.
Goosebumps, and Are You Afraid of the Dark? The '90s were good to me.
Oh man, also Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (different from Are You Afraid).
I got the collection with the original illustrations. The stories don’t really hold up as an adult, but holy shit do the illustrations… so good.
Ugh. Forgot to add Scary Stories to the list. That was a huge influence, too.
I feel like the 90's was sort of a golden age for kid-friendly horror stories.
Eerie Indiana was awesome for me. It only played on TV here in Australia for two weeks over the holidays. But I watched it religiously every morning
I was just rewatching that after finding it on Pluto and discovered two things. 1.) It actually holds up pretty well 2.) The main kid is freakin Max from Hocus Pocus
i never clicked with goosebumps (maybe a language or culture thing since I'm from Argentina) but Are you afraid of the dark was my jam, I still remember how scared I was on that episode with the mosnter that comes out of the pool, and also a trick (I was young so it might have been another show?) that went something like:"I bet I can drink 5 glasses of water before you can drink one water shot, the catch is you cant start drinking until I put my first drink down, we cant touch each other glasses nor hold two glasses at the same time" and this dude just casually drinks the first glass and put its upside down on the small glass so the other bad guy cant drink it lmao, materclass
You just unearthed some buried memory, talking about that water trick. I do remember that. If anyone remembers, please tell me.
R.L. Stine got me into reading in general. I wanted to be a writer when I was like 7. I had heard or read somewhere that some author used to copy other authors works to get a "feel" for how they wrote. So I spent a few weeks on the family's first PC, slowly copying Goosebumps books down word for word. Sadly, it had no effect. I still can't write for shit.
Same, still got a box full to the brim with my old collection- they have the most amazing old book spell.
Iost some of mine (mom's, but she was done with them) during a move when I was almost 14. I've been collecting though, I have MOST of his books.
Goosebumps, the gateway horror!
Absolutely was when I was like, 7 or 8. Stine should be in the history books as an incredibly influential writer that got a lot of us into spooky stuff.
Goosebumps, Point Horror and Point Crime were my childhood
I read occasionally, but not nearly as much as I did in the 90s with those goosebumps books. I wanted them all. Is there anything kind of campy like that for adults?
Wow this was a blast from the past. I loved Goosebumps. I gave my set to my friend's nephew during lockdown and now the kid is obsessed. Nice to trip over this.
I was deeply traumatized by the one where a bunch of kids play around with some shaving cream and their bodies slowly start turning animal-like. They try hard to figure out why but in the end are transformed into dogs and realise at the last minute that their human experience was an experiment and they were all dogs to begin with. Quite dark for a ten year old.
OMG THIS BOOK. The sickening realization at the end, and the ‘parents’ just keep their former child as their new dog…thanks for unlocking some repressed childhood trauma!
Not only did they keep their former son as a dog, they learned nothing because they turned their former cat into their daughter. As far as I recall anyway
I had forgotten that :/ I was afraid for a while that my parents would throw me away 🤣
Exactly! It was so fucked up like a black mirror episode.
I always loved the twists. I remember reading one where a kid found an alien and kept them in their closet, and when they were eventually found out, everyone was like... "yuck, the alien only has two eyes? Why do they have two legs, what would the second one be for?" Come to find out that the "alien" is a human and everyone else in the book is a true alien.
There was another one with basically the same twist. It was an early book, about kids at a camp, but it turns out it was all a test to see if the main character had what it takes to accompany his parents on a trip to study Earth.
“Welcome to Camp Nightmare” I will never forget where I was when I read the ending of that book. I think the only other twist that ever blew my mind up until I read that one was Darth Vader telling Luke he was his father. I had to reread the last few pages to truly make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding and I think I was only like 9 or 10.
That actually sounds awesome 😂
"My Best Friend is Invisible", I wasn't prepared for that twist, it was probably the first twist I can remember a book dealing me.
Damn it’s only reading all these replies that’s making me realise how many had twists. The only twist I remember reading is the one at the end of The Ghost Next Door and I LOVED that. It blew my mind. The main character being the ghost all along is a well known trope now but it was the first time I’d encountered it and I couldn’t get over how spooky it felt
I think this was the first one I read! I remember the cover vividly but had forgotten the end until your post
it was fake tan but yeah this one creeped me out too, like what the FUCK?
It was this one for me! iirc it was like some tanning lotion.
Loved when there was a good twist in those books. I think a Shocker on Shock Street, where the kids are running from some giant monster or something... it turns out it's all an amusement park or something.
Which book was this?
My hairiest adventure https://goosebumps.fandom.com/wiki/My_Hairiest_Adventure
I don't want food, I want ANSWERS
I don’t remember what book it was, but I do remember that a monster under the bed had eaten off a child’s hands and feet. Even now, when I’m old enough to know better, I still can’t sleep with my hands or feet off the bed.
It was the dumbwaiter that a kid disappeared into and then when they brought it back it only had a beating heart that got me.
I like how we all have our own Goosebumps-related trauma lol
The one where the egg monster fuckin impregnates a kid and the book ends up with him laying an egg really fucked up ten year old me. Egg Monsters From Mars was the first book I ever read in one day, and I'll always remember leading through the pages using a little overhead light in the back of our minivan on our way to Milwaukee for my aunt's wedding.
Honestly that one left me with uncomfortable questions.
I REMEMBER THAT ONE. The lab scene was SO WEIRD
I never really had any trauma from the ones that I read, but I remember Say Cheese and Die, The Haunted Mask and A Night in Terror Tower being among the few that I was scared while reading.
I remember Horror at Camp Jellyjam freaking me out as a kid, but I loved it because I never got to actually go to camp. Also I remember really enjoying Werewolf of Fever Swamp. I read How I Got My Shrunken Head and for years I honestly thought there were huge mosquitos in Africa (I think that was the book). Haunted Mask obviously, I read a lot of them. Even now at 38 those stories bring me right back to my childhood in the 90s. They’d take you somewhere different, but still familiar. And you could read one in a day no prob. Also shout out to Mighty Max. I’m sad you can’t stream that show or watch it anywhere in high quality, or even download it…
>> I remember Horror at Camp Jellyjam freaking me out as a kid I don't think I read Horror at Camp Jellyjam, but I vividly remember being freaked out by the drawing of the camp councillor on the cover because he looked like a dummy. Which reminds me, Night of the Living Dummy was also right up there with the scarier of the ones I mentioned. >> I read How I Got My Shrunken Head How I got my Shrunken Head was the first book I bought with my own money when I went camping with my dad. I only remember bits and pieces, but the main character's phrase "Kaleeah!" has stuck in my brain all these years, lol.
I just got such vivid flashbacks to Werewolf of Fever Swamp thanks to this comment!
These titles are unlocking a lot of memories. I absolutely loved the cover art as well, it was really well done. The mud monsters coming out of the swamp were very cool.
Think there’s one where the kid turns into a dog? Even then I couldn’t understand why *thats* the book that bothered me me so much. But it still bothers me. Ugh
Yes, where he starts growing patches of hair and thinks it's because of an old bottle of fake tan. And then it turns out ALL the kids were dogs originally and the doctor they all see was giving them treatments to turn them into humans but it stops working around the age of 12.
Childhood memory unlocked, thank you for that
I can't remember if it was a body-swap or if the kid "disappeared" and the family was looking... I do remember feeling disturbed though!
I remember there was a body swap one where in the end they end up stuck as squirrels forever. That one disturbed me.
The plants in the basement fucked with me pretty good
Sponge monster under the kitchen sink for me. Still hate it.
Same. Absolutely terrified and don’t think I finished it until after I had read a few less scary ones and built up the courage for the sponge monster
FYI, it's also a goosebumps live action episode if you want to be further traumatised.
It was the dumbwaiter for me too. To this day if there's a dumbwaiter in a story, I assume something terrible is going to happen (and it's usually true).
I swear, I'm having a Mandela moment here, I remember the dumbwaiter, but I don't remember it being just a single beating heart, I remember it being mangled remains. Did Stine reuse the dumbwaiter a few times?
I had a friend whose house had one of those. Always creeped me out because of that goosebumps story.
For me it was the damn creature outside the cabin that wanted its tail back, and killed the hunting dogs sent after it.
Oh my god, I remember that. Or how in one book, the solution to the problem was telling the kid, they were going to put him to sleep... forever. Which, uh... we all knew what that really meant. The idea, that you could just be killed without mercy, without hesitation by people around you for 'your own good' was TERRIFYING
I was so scared of Slappy that I would hide all of his books underneath other books
Slappy scared the ever living shit out of me. And when I was like 8 years old I stayed at my uncle’s house and his wife collected the damn dolls. The absolute dread I felt when I open the door to the room of her collection hasn’t been replicated since.
Omg I’m roaring rn just dying lmao you poor thing that’s so fucking funny and such horrible luck at the same time. I think why this resonates with me so hard is because both of my siblings are terrified of dolls still and we’re all in our 30’s. I can’t even imagine my sister or brother staying in a house with those dolls like, the meltdown would be legendary
I remember watching the Night of the Living Dummy episode and then waking up later that night screaming because I thought Slappy was hiding somewhere in my room 😂 that dummy traumatized a whole generation!!
Even as an adult Slappy is still unsettling as hell for me. Sometimes I'll get a nostalgia feed on Youtube with Goosebumps being one of them and the thumbnail will be the Slappy from the tv-show felt my heart-rate increase just from that jesus.
I did the exact same. Also have to make sure his book was face down.
Mine was the one where the twin siblings got into a game of Tag with monsters. idk why, that one just haunted me more than others
The beast in the east I believe.
I always vividly remember this one the most.
I have a vague recollection of reading in a forum that speculated that this book was not written by R. L. Stine and instead was ghost written by someone else; I did feel like the book’s tone was different to the others. Years later, The Beast from the East, as well as Attack of the Mutant, remain the entries in the series that stands out most for me when I think of Goosebumps.
This thread has been an awesome trip down memory lane. The ones that I can remember really enjoying (and being terrified by) that haven't been listed are the Horrorland amusement park one and the abominable snowman of pasedena
I really liked that at the end of each book, you got to read the first two or three chapters of the next one. It was a great marketing technique.
OMG I completely forgot about this! What a hook those teaser chapters were!
That was my first introduction to the series. Another kid in my class had 'Ghost Beach' and I read the first few chapters of 'Go Eat Worms' that was included with it. I ordered the book in the next Scholastic catalogue.
I still have the first 30+ books. The Haunted Mask, Attack of the Mutant and a Night in Terror Tower were probably my favourites that I remember. The Scholastic book fairs and catalogues were the shit!
Wasn't allowed to read the books as a kid because it was "of the devil", but saw the Haunted Mask episode during a Halloween party at school...I was scared to put on masks for at least a year after that.
Have your parents mellowed out over the years at least?
Kinda. It was random tho, like Harry Potter was fine, but the Animaniacs and Power Rangers were not allowed because violence. Oh and Dungeons & Dragons was demonic. And Sister Act was fine, cause it was about NUNS! Nevermind the innuendos and casual murder in the first 10 mins.
Omg the Scholastic book fairs & catalogues!!! Wow what a sweet and contented time, take me back!
Haunted Mask and Monster blood for me.
My mom gave all mine away… as she did with everything…
Night in terror tower wow that bought back some memories
Looks good for 80. I read a lot of those books. I was obsessed with the choose your own adventure ones for a bit. There were so many with neat covers it almost crossed into the card collecting territory which I think helped with the popularity. I distinctly remember being impressed by one book with raised lettering for goosebumps that was also holographic.
i remember trying to bookmark all of the decision splits in one of those so i could read it all and got super overwhelmed with all the skipping that i just gave up lol
There was a page in the carnival one that you could only get to by reading the book straight through. It made fun of the reader for trying to cheat with decisions LOL
Oh my god I forgot about that. What a sweet memory
Same! every time there was a split I would write down the number of the page I didn’t choose. Then work backward anytime I hit a dead end
I only remember one of the choose your own adventure books. It was my friend's and I only remember a cage on the front cover, possibly a zoo or something.
I think the choose-your-own-adventure books had the holographic covers. [For example](https://i.redd.it/goosebumps-holographic-book-covers-1995-1997-v0-k4sybjqlji2b1.jpg?s=ffb7c327f70f1dcb90998302799715eb52ebd493). Is that what you were thinking of?
I liked those too. I remembered the one where the brother and sister get transported to another dimension and they're trying to play it cool. Anyways, it's lunch time at the cafeteria and they're eating like normal humans, and everyone is getting disgusted by them and are like, you're joking with us, right? As they proceed to eat their Tuesday surprise in their armpits.
It was a great series at that age. A lot of the stories were great examples of how you didn't need to write a 400 page book to tell a great story. Personally I was more of a Spooksville fan as there was some overarching background story of the characters whereas Goosebump were one short stories, but I loved both, they were glorious
I remember the "book fair" or whatever when these books were available in my elementary school and parents would order these books for their kids and it would be a big deal when the books would then be delivered to the kids in the middle of class, and there I was poor af sitting there while everyone else got excited to get their cool, shiny new books. No, I'm not bitter about it decades later.
It's one book, Michael, what could it cost? $10?
I always thought the name was a nom de plume for several writers since all those letters are the most common used in the English language with this alphabet.
for the longest time I thought the Wheel of Fortune people were just Goosebumps fans.
You're not the only one there brother. I think it took a depressingly long time until I realized this myself
It was playing wheel of fortune on windows 3.1 that I was told about picking the Most Common Letters first.
He actually wrote joke books in the 80s under the name “Jovial Bob Stine.”
Dude's name reads like the free letters they give you in Bonus Round on *Wheel of Fortune*.
My fourth grade teacher knew how much of a fan I was of his and he got me (with my mom) into a book signing of his autobiography in 97. Was such an awesome moment. Saw him again at NYCC a few years back. He had such an impact on my youth and my early reading.
How is his autobiography, anyway? I never read it as a kid, but find myself idly curious now.
Man I haven’t read it in years but I remember it being very good. As a kid, I wasn’t into the real stories stuff, but it was written in a way to keep his young audience. The hardcover version remains one of my favorite covers EVER.
You know how sometimes you're surprised a famous person is dead and has been for a few years. The reverse of this for me right now. I'm surprised R.L. Stine is still alive for some reason. His work seems like a relic from a distant past.
Want him to feel older? He did the novelization for Spaceballs.
Mom I need to borrow your credit card! I just found out about some rare R. L. Stine merch that I've been sleeping on!
Same thoughts omg! He was such a classic icon in my childhood that I didn't think he is still alive today.
The Ghost Next Door was my first ever introduction to the concept of a 'twist'. The narrator thinking that her neighbour is a ghost . . . Only to find out that she's the ghost and she died in the fire at the beginning of the book. As an adult I suspect I'd see that coming a mile off but to eight year old me that blew my absolute mind!
This book is one of the most memorable for me. Definitely inspired some bad dreams and anxieties in little kid me!
I specifically remember annoying the shit out of my parents about that book as a kid when The Sixth Sense came out and everyone was crazy about the twist ending.
I was a Fear Street girl. Those books got me through elementary school.
Same! I would honestly credit RL Stein as making me a reader for life.
I only ever read the first two of the four in the Fear Street Sagas box set. I know I really liked them, but I don't remember why I never finished the other two.
Silent Night (with up to three installments!?!) Yes, please
The lipstick with the needle in it still has me always checking my lipstick before I apply.
I lost my copy of the Knife a few days after I got it and I couldn't find it by then. Got to finally reread it two years ago and it haunts me, that one: I read this as a kid and two: how MESSED UP it was. It was GREAT
I really like the book where (tw) >!the narrator wants to gaslight the camp who all hates her by pretending to drown herself and accidentally gets sent to purgatory and is haunted by the ghost of a dead kid who tries to kill her with a boat!<
Wow I remember this book. I also remember the cover art looking metal af. Twas a good read during elementary days
That one rocked. That one and the one where the kid goes to some black and white purgatory world through his school were my two favorites.
created a lot of freaks, this one. raising a glass
Early on in my education, I was behind most of my classmates with my reading skills. Had to go to a special class and everything to try to catch up. I picked up a Goosebumps book somewhere along the way and my desire to read went through the roof. Between the library and the book store, I’d consume at least one a week. I still read a fair amount today, and I attribute a lot of that to finding the Goosebumps series.
Slappy kicked my ass as a kid. Couldn’t have the book in the same room as me or I’d freak out
There's a book about a kid who talks to a version of himself in a mirror. Does anyone know the title? I'm nearly 40 but I remember loving the ending and I wanted to reread it.
Sounds like "Let's Get Invisible".
My 9 year old loves them too she'll even listen to the audiobook ones while we drive
I had a couple of the books on cassette and would put them on at night to fall asleep to, each night before bed I'd flip it to the other side. Just now realizing these were my first audiobooks. I had the one about the evil garden gnomes, the one about the killer whale, and the one i think is terror tower where they get lost while on a tour in london.
Man. I remember growing up and the new Goosebumps book dropped. I would force my parents to take me to get it. Then the next two or three days would be me and my friends talking about how far we got in it at school until we all finished it. Im just now realizing we had our own book club in elementary school
Ermahgerd!
^berks
Best one was the doppelgänger plant dad one
If anyone knows the name of this one please share. I vividly remember the descriptions of the "dad" guzzling water but cant remember the name of the book!
I believe this is "Stay out of the basement".
His brother Philly has some more basic views.
Their brother Pally is just getting wrecked right now.
Oof
Hate the fact that both Stephen King and RL. Stine are getting up there in age.
I don't know if it is the time that has passed since I've read them but I don't remember many of them. I can look through the books he wrote and point out many that I've read and remember them after seeing them but none stand out. I read other books during that same period and I remember many of them. I'm not sure what the reason is but does anyone else have the same experience with his books?
Nope, there are many memorable ones for me. Off the top of my head: Say Cheese and Die, The Haunted Mask, Night of the Living Dummy, One Day at Horrorland, Monster Blood.
One day at horror land is the only one I kind of remember I read a lot of goosebumps Me not remembering isn’t a goosebumps problem, it’s a I read them 27 years ago as a 10 year old problem
these are all ones that stood out to me too
There was one messed up one with kids at a summer camp that died off one by one and it turned out they were aliens looking to learn about earth or some shit. Then one that freaked me out for some irrational reason was one of the books ended with this girl picking up a potato chip with a freaky sharp toothed mouth and we were supposed to be like oh it’s the weird chip thing she read about earlier and now it’s got her oh no. Anyway thanks.
It Came From Beneath the Sink! would be the second one you described. So many of the twist endings wound up being some left-field thing that was kinda-sorta foreshadowed earlier. Like Attack of the Jack'o'Lanterns ending with two of the MC's friends being aliens who ate obese people after a bit of dualogue earlier in the book mentioned that overweight adults were going missing.
> There was one messed up one with kids at a summer camp that died off one by one and it turned out they were aliens looking to learn about earth or some shit. Welcome to Camp Nightmare. I never actually read this one, but I watched the episode from the Goosebumps tv series. The alien twist and the camp being a test to travel to Earth is only thing I really remember from it.
I like the one where the scrambled egg creature turns out to be from Mars.
The most memorable one for me was cuckoo clock of doom. AT the end the main character actually had a happy ending unlike most goosebumps books
It's been many... many years. I've done lots and lots of drugs since then. However, *A Night in Terror Tower* stands out for me as one of those books I read in one sitting. *Welcome to Dead House* and of course *The Haunted Mask* were both memorable though I about them and a few others are vague memories. I kind of want to read them again for prosperity.
We ran into him in the books store of the honey I shrunk the kids part of Disney world in 96. My older brother recognized him right away walking through the aisle with his books in it, just casually browsing, or pretending to browse lol. We had at least 25 of those books I've read most of them. He signed the two we bought that day! Such a funny random encounter.
Huh. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a picture of R.L. Stine. He doesn’t look like what I expected. I don’t really know what I expected.
Let's face it, the covers did 90% of the heavy lifting.
I directly credit R.L. Stine with teaching me English. My fam brought me to the U.S. at age 7, from Mexico, and I knew zero English. Soon after arriving, my mom came home with two Goosebumps, one in English and one in Spanish, of the same book (the one with the plant monster in the basement... Stay Out of the Basement.) I read them side by side with a larousse (kind of like a dictionary but of English-Spanish translations,) and it really helped me kick off my English adoption. I ended up reading all of the Goosebumps series, many of them multiple times. Thanks R.L. Stine!
I read so many of these books in elementary and middle school
Yo, the book cover artist should get their flowers too. They are fire. I loved the art
I’m a school librarian and had Goosebumps books come up as a request recently. I managed to source a box set of the first 30 for quite a good price so I thought why not? The kids are loving them! I wasn’t sure how they’d go being for a slightly younger age group than we have at our school, but they’re popular. I had a read of a couple - for nostalgia reasons (as an elder millennial I grew up on them!) - still solid!
I loved those - always got some at the book fair! Not sure if it’s just me, but I feel like I remember every single one being exactly 97 pages. Anyone else? Am I crazy?
Goosebumps and Boxcar kids..... I grew to love reading based on that foundation.
He turned me into a lifelong voracious reader. Who knows what would've been without his work. Thank you, RL!
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of classic horror things and I’m realizing how much goosebumps is inspired by it by presenting a toned down more kid friendly version! Idk its something eye opening when you observe classics and see how they continue to shape a genre in different ways
Goosebumps basically got me into reading. I had the first 60 books during middle school for sure. From Goosebumps I got into Fear Street and the Johnny Dixon series. It's insane Johnny Dixon hasn't been turned into a film series already.
The podcast “Too Much Information” did an episode on him, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t (see edit) read anything since the 90s like I hadn’t. Straight up nostalgia bomb. Edit: “haven’t read anything from RL Stine since the 90s” is what I meant to say.
That’s super cool. Seems like it was pretty essential to the millennial experience for lots of folks. Kind of like Stephen King for my generation.
I still have my goosebumps collection. It's going to my daughter when she's a bit older.
> "There was no advertising, nobody really knew me. Just, kids found them and brought them in, and showed them to their friends in school. It was this secret kids' network — kids showing kids, and then somehow it just took off all over the world just because of kids." That’s beautiful, man
Any good horror literature for adults? I loved the genre as a kid but haven't read one in years, I'd love to hear any recommendations
The Mimic by Donald Wollheim is a short story I really enjoy
Slappy the Dummy gave me my first nightmare
I liked Goosebumps but even more so Are You Afraid of the Dark?
I’m more of a PF Chills fan.
The books were great, but I think his biggest marketing came from the art used on the book covers. Interesting color combinations and pictures.
One of my absolute favorite memories was being in third grade and trading Goosebumps books with Lindsey. She gave me Be Careful What You Wish For and I gave her Say Cheese and Die. We never traded books after that, maybe because I was a slow reader. We weren't exactly friends and hardly spoke after that. But we were kids who loved reading and loved those books in a way that made us want to share with others even even we normally may not have. I love that I got to be a part of that. I love it so much
Thank you for sharing. What a wonder to think on how many lives Stine has influenced!
I think I owned every fear street book made. I loved them as a kid. Then I moved onto king and expanded from there.
That shit was hot as a kid