MONSTER BLOOD
My introduction to the Goosebumps series came during a very scary time in my life: I was 6 years old and had just had my appendix removed. The thought of being trapped in the hospital bed after sundown was terrifying, but the little boy in the next room was kind enough to share his copy of Monster Blood (and some wild-looking chocolates from Brazil). Reading the story about Evan, the witch, and her evil monster blood cheered me up. I couldn’t stop turning pages, riveted by the frights and humor of the immersive world that R.L. Stine created for kids who have an appetite for larger-than-life adventures.
Stine writes brilliantly scary stories that are thrilling, funny, and poetic in their own spooky ways. And I love his process, entirely focused on the payoff for his young readers:
“One thing I do as a writer is that I come up with the ending first so that I can keep readers from guessing it. I do a complete outline of every book, but I always try to get the ending before I write Chapter One. Because then I know how to fool the reader.”
I might be better able to guess the ending now, but as an adult, the magic of reading R.L. Stine is of course in the nostalgia—thinking back at how silly, how bizarre, how fun, and how unique the world seemed to me when I was little.
This summer marks 30 years since the first Goosebumps book was published, and I’m going to celebrate it by spending the long weekend revisiting Monster Blood and reading R.L. Stine’s latest collection Stinetinglers, out this week!
—Lauren Ma, Business Affairs Coordinator
