Thursday, August 21, 2008

Goosebumps: The Horror Books of My Youth


R.L. Stine was my favorite author until I was in like 9th grade.

I've probably read every single one of the books in the series Goosebumps.

This just goes to show you my love of horror even at an early age...btw.

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I discovered the raised "bumps" in the title of those books. It was love at first goosebump. I hated to read, but once I got my hands on those books, I was a readin' machine.

Goosebumps is/was a series of books (62 of them) from 1992-1997. Scholastic would send around those fliers of books that you could order, and I would force my mother to order me every single Goosebumps book. The first one I ever read was Welcome to Dead House. I was HOOKED.


There was literally something for everyone, from haunted houses, to zombies, to living dummies, to bugs, to science experiments gone awry, to ghosts. Goosebumps had it all and my appetite for horror fiction was insatiable.

And then they even made tv movies about some of the books, like The Haunted Mask, and I was enthralled:
HAUNTED MASK G.B
Here's a trailer someone made for it, which i appreciated:


Wikipedia comprised a list of every single Goosebumps book, and let me tell you, there's alot more now than when I was a kid.

Scholastic.com also has a series called "Horrorland" that continues the saga of Goosebumps.

An additional Goosebumps series, "Give Yourself Goosebumps", allows the reader to "choose their fate" and pick the characters' choices in the book. A good example is Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, as it has a great Carnival/Circus type of storyline with additional gimmicks and games the reader can play.

Goosebumps was to me what appeared to be the book version to inspire the Snick show "Are you Afraid of the Dark?" which was another thing I loved as a kid.

more on that to come later.


Announcement: 70 more days til Monster Bash '08!!! SO CLOSE!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to work with a kid who hates,hated ,hated reading until I put Goosebumps in his hands :)

One of my kids loves Goosebumps and I grab them every time I see them at booksales/yardsales. I love the "Give yourself Goosebumps" series.I wish I could find more of them!

I'll try that! said...

Hey, the history of Halloween on the History Channel...website:

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=1076

Superstitious FunDelicious said...

I guess I am a little older. I also loved R.L. Stein, but I loved the Fear Street series. I read those bastards like no bodies business. I have no idea why I could make it through those books, but still can't watch a scary movie without screaming and having nightmares for two weeks.

Monster Bash Blog said...

i totally forgot about Fear Street!!! I do remember those books! I was def more of a Goosebump kinda gal though...

I agree with reading and not being as sacared as watching the movie...I don't get it either!