Ten favorite Goosebumps books

 A ranking by Brooks Rich

My love for horror started when I was a little kid. I've covered the classic Nickelodeon show Are You Afraid of the Dark before. That was a big influence for me as far as loving creepy stories and being scared once the sun goes down. But Are You Afraid of the Dark was only on Saturday nights. RL Stine's Goosebumps series was available every day at anytime. I could read them at anytime. I recently took Stie's Masterclass and it made me look at the original Goosebumps run around again. Do they hold up? No not really. But nostalgia was strong with this one and I thought a ranking of my ten favorite Goosebumps would be fun. So reader beware, you're in for a scare. Sort of. 

10. Night of the Living Dummy

10. Night of the Living Dummy

Controversy already. One of the most beloved books in the series ranked so low? Yes. I like this one but it doesn't hold up in the annals of creepy puppet horror. Slappy the dummy, maybe the iconic monster of the Goosebumps series, is no Chucky and Slappy isn't even the main antagonist of this book. But it works overall and is pretty creepy for a kids book. Puppets aren't inherently scary and Stine uses that to his advantage. There's a reason Slappy is the icon of the series and this book is part of that reason. 

9. The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight

Like puppets in the previous entry, this book takes advantage of the fact that scarecrows are inherently scary. I mean look at the cover. Creeped seven-year-old me the fuck out. I remember really being scared by this story. Two siblings go to visit their grandparents farm and well, the scarecrow is more active then any scarecrow should be. Kids are always being sent off to live with relatives in weird places in these books. It's odd. Note to self kids. If your parents try to send you to the middle of nowhere where your uncle has a dairy farm, don't go.  

8. One Day At Horrorland

More controversy with having another classic of the series ranked so low. I still really like this one. Carnivals are a great setting for a horror story and this is Stine's treatment. He really used the Goosebumps to explore common horror tropes and making them digestible for kids. Personally this story, about two kids experience at a horror themed amusement park, eventually led to me reading the Ray Bradbury classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes. More on that masterpiece later. 

 7. Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

Stine is very good at suburban horror. Sure he writes plenty of stories about creepy old mansions or farms in the middle of the nowhere. But sometimes he sets a story on a normal suburban street. Like this one about a kid who is convinced that the new lawn gnomes his father bought are coming to life in the middle of the night and causing mischief. It's a borderline silly concept but as a kid it worked for me. The world feels different when the sun down when you're seven and it's easy to believe those little bastards on the cover would start running around come nightfall. 

6. Attack of the Mutant 

Oh man what a great idea this one is. A comic book supervillain comes to life and terrorizes a comic fan named Skipper. Skipper? OK. I might appreciate this one more than when I was a kid. Imagine if the Joker came to life. That would be a living nightmare. A psychotic homicidal clown running around? Oof. Ok the Mutant isn't the Joker by any means but the idea is still the same. Comic book villains may not seem like horror villains but that's because we experience them fighting superheroes. Imagine a regular kid taking on General Zod or the Green Goblin. Terrifying. 

5. The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

My first experience with the werewolf myth. Scared the shit out of me. The idea that when the full moon comes out you lose all control and our into a bloodthirsty beast? That was a lot for seven-year-old me to deal with. I think Stine's treatment of the werewolf myth is fantastic and this is one I would still consider reading even today. He just makes it seem so real for a kid. He plays both sides of the horror, making this a story about not only running from a monster but eventually becoming that very same monster. Fantastic stuff here. 

4. The Haunted Mask

A lot of people would call this book the best of the series. It is very good. I get it. Like the previous entry this is all about the monster within us all. But where the werewolf is a cursed being this book says that we all have something evil within us. It wouldn't take much for that evil to come out. I'm surprised this has never been adapted into a full Hollywood movie and not just the extended episode of the television show we got. I think it would work like a charm. 

3. A Shocker On Shock Street

My first experience with a twist ending. This is a pretty run of the mill story about two kids trying to escape a ride run amok. The monsters have come to life and they're up to no good. But this one stands out to me for a twist ending I didn't see coming. It genuinely surprised me and was the first time I remember thinking, oh a story can be turned on it's head even in the last few pages. Is this the beginnings of my love for twist endings that would make me love The Twilight Zone years later? Maybe. 

2. Stay Out of the Basement 

This scared the shit out of me as a kid. Holy crap this book was terrifying to kid me. A mad scientists experiment with plants getting out of hand and making a walking plant monster that can take the place of humans. Um no thanks. Holy Invasion of the Body Snatchers, RL. Also that cover is my favorite of the series. This was the first Goosebumps I ever read so it will always hold a special place in my heart. This book could very well be the origin of my love for horror. It was tough to pick between this and number one. This barely missed out on the top spot.

1. How I Learned To Fly

This is an odd pick for my favorite Goosebumps because this is not a horror story at all. Nothing really scary happens in this book at all. There's a briefly creepy scene in an old house with some rat but that's about it. But this might be the most relatable of the books. A boy named Jack gains the ability of flight and immediately wants to use it to impress the girl he likes and to one up the boy who is always competitive and getting the best of him. The book deals with a lot of important lessons for kids such as the pain of defeat, the price of fame, and what it means to be different. I read this near the end of my time with the series, when it became too kiddie for me, and it has always stuck with me. Jack is the most likable of Stine's protagonists and a lot of lessons about the pains of growing up are presented here. As a storyteller I appreciate what Stine is doing here, which is why it's my favorite.