Piano Lessons Can Be Murder
This is the
first ever Goosebumps book that I read at my school library in sixth grade. The eerie story line was enough to get me hooked to R. L. Stine’s style of writing and his numerous novellas. It starts off
with curious Jerry discovering a strange woman playing an old piano in the
attic of his new house. She suddenly disintegrates into a skeleton. His parents
mistake his fear of seeing the lady, for an interest in music and subsequently
sign him up for piano lessons with a private tutor (only something Goosebumps
parents would do). His piano teacher, Dr Shreek, seems to take an interest in
him and his ‘hands’ and subsequently invites him to learn at his music school which
consists of never ending corridors, where Jerry keeps losing his way and can
never seem to spot any students.
Welcome To Dead House
This is by far
the scariest book in the Goosebumps series. A family moves to Dark Falls, which
is so named since the whole town is strangely darkened with the shadows of
overhanging trees and seems to have an ominous air about it, despite it being
the middle of summer. Amanda and Josh, along with Petey, their dog, are instinctively
hesitant about entering the house, which looks old and unwelcoming; much to the
chagrin of their parents. Amanda begins spotting the figure of a boy inside the
house and gets terrible nightmares, but keeps dismissing them as illusions
resultant from the stress of shifting into the new neighborhood. None of the children are particularly
nice to the newcomers and everyone there seems to have a fear of light.
The Headless Ghost
The Twin
Terrors, Stephanie and her friend Duane are expert pranksters who derive a
thrill from scaring the neighborhood children on Halloween night. They also
enjoy touring Hill House which is rumored to be haunted by the 200-year old
ghost of a sea captain who lost his life at sea and was devastated to find his
wife gone when he returned to the house in spirit form. It is also said to be
haunted by the headless ghost of Andrew Craw, a spiteful thirteen year old who
loved to torture servants and animals. His entire family is said to have met a
tragic end, each in gruesome ways at the hands of the sea captain who was
angered when Andrew discovered his hiding place one night. Stephanie and Duane
decide to take the last tour on Halloween night, and are approached by a
mysterious blonde haired boy who offers to show them around the house outside of
visiting hours.
Vampire Breath
Freddy and his
best friend Cara, return home after babysitting for the night. They decide to
play a game of air hockey in his basement, and accidentally hit a china cabinet
against the wall that opens up a secret passageway presumably leading into a tunnel.
Curious to see what lies beyond, they
decide to investigate and stumble upon a coffin and a bottle of something
containing ‘Vampire Breath’. Upon accidentally opening the flask (oopsie!), a
gaseous cloud is released, waking the ancient vampire Count Nightwing. I’m not
particularly obsessed with vampires, but this one doesn’t end like any other
Goosebumps story.
Say Cheese And Die!
This tale is a
truly spine tingling one, especially for all you amateur photographers out
there! Greg, accompanied by his three closest friends Shari, Michael and
Doug are bored and decide to snoop into the
abandoned and creepy house of an eccentric man they call Spidey (take a wild
guess). They find an old camera hidden away in a basement compartment and
decide to snap photos of each other. There turns out to be something truly
strange with the photos it snaps, which captures an accident befalling the photographed
victim before it actually takes place. The cursed camera seems to actually
cause the accidents and before long, his friends and family start to get badly
hurt, with no way known of reversing the damage that follows.
Ghost Beach
Siblings Jerry
and Terri Saddler are sent to spend the summer with their distant and aging
relatives, Agatha and Brad Sadler, who live by the beach. They encounter three
children Sam, Nat and Louisa near a graveyard, who have the same family name as
them and claim to be distantly related. The children tell them to watch out for
the ghost that resides on the cave overlooking the beach, and that it comes out
when the moon is full. The trio seem to get uneasy when a skeletal dog shows up
and explain that ghosts hate dogs (ironic?). They also encourage Jerry and
Terri to explore the cave and see for themselves. The story ends with an
unexpected twist that you never see coming!
Let’s Get Invisible!
While twelve
year old Max is busy getting ready for his birthday party, his younger left
handed brother Noah keeps bullying him. At the end of the party, most of his
guests leave with the exception of shy April and squeaky voiced Erin. The trio
decide to investigate his musty attic, and his dog Whitey accidentally finds a
secret dark room within the attic, containing a single antique mirror, with a
light attached to it. When Max stands before the mirror and switches the light
on, the others notice that he disappears. It is revealed that the mirror turns
people invisible! The next day, Max and his brother decide to test the powers
of the mirror again, but this time they get weak and it takes a longer time for
them to reappear from the invisible state. Max dismisses the mirror as
dangerous and is unwilling to use it again. However, Noah is a little too taken
up with it and tries to set a record for who can stay invisible the longest.
One Day at Horrorland
Siblings Luke and
Lizzy are traveling through a desert and on the lookout for the Zoo Gardens
theme park, accompanied with their parents and friend Clay. Presumable lost, they
end up at HorrorLand which is located in the middle of a forest. Upon parking
their car, it explodes and they all luckily survive. They are allowed to enter
the theme park for free, and are surprised by the absence of telephones in the
park (hardly surprising). They decide to try out a few rides which turn out to
be dangerous, and barely make it out of the Deadly Doom slide and the hall of
mirrors alive. Luke and Lizzy’s parents are nowhere to be found and it is up to
the three of them to escape the theme park.
Ghost Next Door
Hannah is
spending a lonely and boring summer without her friends, who have all gone on
vacation and never seem to reply to her letters. She meets her new next door neighbor, Danny the daredevil, who keeps getting into trouble with his
mischievous friends. Hannah repeatedly tries to warn Danny against causing
havoc, while she struggles with horrifying nightmares of waking up in her bed
to find it on fire. She senses that something
about Danny isn’t quite right, since they don’t know any of the same people,
despite being in the same grade. She cannot remember him moving in and finds it
unsettling how he keeps disappearing in a mere flicker of a second. She begins
to suspect that he might be a ghost.
The Haunted School
Tommy wants to
help out with decorations for the upcoming school dance. He decides to help out
a beautiful blond girl named Thalia and in doing so, ends up getting lost. He
stumbles upon a room with 25 statues of students marked as ‘The Class of 1947’.
The principal appears and explains to him that the statues have been placed in
memory of the students that went missing after a class picture was taken of
them. Tom and his friend Ben, decide to fix a banner on the night of the dance,
and are accidentally transported to GrayWorld via an odd elevator. They make an
amazing discovery upon reaching the strange place, where everything is in black
and white (grayscale).
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