Reader Beware
Write Club Prompt #80
It’s difficult for me to pick just one book as a favorite from my childhood. Instead I’ll pick the one that stands out as starting my love of reading.
I still remember seeing this cover in the Scholastic books order form they sent home with us. It stood out to me because of those skeletons. At the time I loved the movie Jason and the Argonauts and my favorite scene was the skeleton fight. Even watching it now that scene holds up. That movie deserves a post of its own.
Spoiler the book doesn’t have any skeletons grilling. This was fine, I didn’t even feel cheated. I was hooked and had to have more of these Goosebumps books. For a while the only books I read other than school books were the work of R.L. Stine.
The main thing I loved in the Goosebumps books was how easy it was to imagine myself in these situations. A camera that shows cursed images of the future and made them come true, various ghosts and monsters these were things that could cure and prevent boredom in my young mind. Then there was the subversive edge. Coming on the heels of the 80s slasher craze Goosebumps was the answer to all the movies I wanted to see but wasn’t allowed to watch.
Looking back I see the influence as pretty positive. While Goosebumps didn’t have any super deep lessons I did learn new ways of looking at the world and they cultivated a love for the worlds hidden in pages.