More & More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps: R.L. Stine’s Wintry Collection of Ten Spooky Stories
This Goosebumps special edition, published in Spain as Historias de Pesadillas nº 4, contains ten short stories that will not leave you indifferent. Each one is a different nightmare, a chilling tale that will make your hair stand on end, and this time they all have a wintry, Christmas feel.
Author: R.L. Stine (born 1943)
Title: More & More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps (1997)
Format: English paperback (Scholastic)
Scope: Goosebumps special edition: ten winter-themed short stories
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/0590366831 (ASIN 0590366831)
Ten Nightmares
A ball that grows out of control, a ballet that seems never to end, a vampire in search of warmth, Jack Frost and a spine-chilling Christmas, identical twins who spend a few days skiing on the most tempting slopes, an extremely corny film that comes true, skates that turn you into the monster of the ice rink, a gummy surprise... and other stories that unfold quickly and simply and get their young heroes into a great deal of trouble.
A Few Favourites
Among the best known are The Ice Vampire, in which a prize-winning ice sculpture turns out to be alive and hungry for warmth; Why I Hate Jack Frost, about a boy in Arizona who misses real winter and buys a strange Christmas ornament; The Double-Dip Horror, with twin sisters on a haunted ski slope; and Nutcracker Nightmare, a ballet that never stops.
R.L. Stine
Robert Lawrence Stine began his career writing jokes and humour books for children, under the name Jovial Bob Stine, and edited the humour magazine Bananas. He turned to horror with the teen series Fear Street and then, in 1992, launched Goosebumps with Welcome to Dead House. The series became one of the great publishing phenomena of the 1990s, spawning a television series and, much later, a 2015 film in which Jack Black played Stine himself. His background in comedy explains the books’ secret: they are scary and funny at the same time.
How a Goosebumps Story Works
Stine’s formula is simple and effective. An ordinary child in an ordinary setting, a school, a ski resort, a suburban home at Christmas, notices something slightly wrong. The tension builds quickly, each scene ends on a cliffhanger, and the last page delivers a twist that turns the story upside down, often with a final joke or one more shiver. The short-story format suits that formula perfectly: each tale can be read in fifteen minutes, and the twist arrives before the reader’s attention wanders.
Fear That Is Safe
Part of the appeal for children is that the fear is safe. Monsters, curses and vampires appear, but there is no real cruelty, and the heroes usually win through courage or cleverness. Many adults who grew up with Goosebumps credit the series with turning them into readers, and teachers and librarians value it for exactly that reason: it gets reluctant readers, especially boys, to finish books and ask for more.
A Winter Collection
This volume’s winter setting makes it a seasonal treat. Snow, ice, skating rinks and Christmas decorations, normally symbols of comfort, become sources of unease, which is a classic horror technique: take something familiar and make it strange.
Reading Together
The stories are short enough to read aloud at bedtime, one a night, and many families do exactly that; just choose the less scary ones for younger listeners. Stine’s endings make good conversation starters: children love guessing the twist before the last page, and predicting endings is a valuable reading skill in itself.
Who Is It For?
Perfect for readers of about eight to twelve who like to be scared just enough, and a great choice for a winter holiday read.
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Part of the reading recommendations featured on books.sapiensverbum.com.
