By Cassie Coughlin |Staff Writer|
The Goosebumps series, created by author R.L. Stine, has terrified and filled the minds of children with spooky monsters for over 25 years.
With each novella featuring a new monster or villain and enticing titles such as “Say Cheese and Die!” or “Night of The Living Dummy,” the Goosebumps series has been a favorite in the thriller genre for preteens.
The series stood out amongst other children’s books because of the spooky narratives and engrossing cover art.
“Goosebumps always had creative ways to scare you and allowed your imagination to go wild,” said student Alex Boice, while comparing the series to other children’s books.
Goosebumps’ popularity grew so immensely because of the terrifying monsters and situations Stine created for his audience. For some, it may crush a part of our childhood to learn that Stine’s main motive behind Goosebumps wasn’t to scare.
“I’m very careful in Goosebumps,” Stine said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “I have to make the kids know that what’s happening in the book couldn’t really happen.”
Establishing a career around imagining monsters and narratives that could lead to some serious goosebumps, one would assume Stine doesn’t scare easily. In fact, he actually finds humor in horror based media.
“I’m kind of odd because scary stuff doesn’t scare me. Horror always makes me laugh. I’m always the one in the movie theater and the shark comes up, and it chews the girl up—I’m always the one laughing. I don’t know why,” said Stine.
Stine isn’t one to scare easily, but that doesn’t mean that Goosebumps lacked in giving readers a terrified feeling.
“As a child, I thought the Goosebumps series was scary due to the vivid personalized covers,” said Boice. “The book’s material was also scary. ”
“A lot of the Goosebumps titles are from these ‘50s horror movies my brother and I saw every week,” Stine said. “[The film] ‘It Came from Beneath the Sea’ became a Goosebumps book called ‘It Came from Beneath the Sink.’ That kind of thing.”
In the early 2000s, the Goosebumps series began to experience a decline in sales. Due to this, Stine decided to not continue writing the novels.
Despite this, the original Goosebumps series have not stopped adding thrill and spook into children’s imagination.
“Even without new titles for so many years, Goosebumps sells about two million copies a year, said president of Scholastic Media Deborah Forte.
The original Goosebumps legacy lives on in the various spin-off series written by Stine, including the latest published in 2008 titled, “Goosebumps HorrorLand.” The Goosebumps series was revived in the film adaption that was released this October and starred actor Jack Black, playing the role of Stine.
As a child born in the 1990s, when Goosebumps first emerged, I am saddened to say that I have never read a novella from the Goosebumps series.
However, after reading Stine describe these iconic stories and hearing members of my generation explain how much the Goosebumps series challenged their imagination and expanded their creativity, I definitely would go back and tell my younger self to be brave and read Goosebumps.
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