A Change for the Strange - 30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps #26

"A Change for the Strange" is the story today. I don't foresee this being any stranger than any other Goosebumps story, but maybe R.L. Stine will wow me. Let's see if he does.

Jane is a middle schooler aspiring to be the star jumper on her track team. Unfortunately she didn't even make the track team, so that's gonna be tough. Her friend Lizzie would rather try on outfits. Convenient then, that the new store A Change for the Strange opened near them so they can try on retro and unusual clothing. Jane ends up with a fashionable red snakeskin jacket. Lizzie purchases an adorable set of bunny slippers. Too cute.

Back at Lizzie's place Jane is wearing her new jacket and kind of loving it. For awhile anyway. Then she starts to feel ill. In fact she starts to feel... strange. Snakelike even. Lizzie freaks out upon discovering one of her brother's disgusting snakes escaped it's cage, not realizing it is actually her best friend. No matter what Jane tries she can't communicate with Lizzie. Though the brother realizes it is not one of his snakes, he still captures it due to his sisters insistence. He notices there is something odd about this snake though. It has... a zipper? I wonder what would happen if you unzipped it. He does so, and *poof* human Jane is back. Hurray.

Flash forward a little bit. Jane is sure to be a star jumper now since Lizzie let her borrow those bunny slippers. She just has to deal with an insatiable desire for carrots.

My Thoughts

We definitely have another story that leans more towards "trying to be fun" than "trying to be scary." That's fine. The title didn't promise it would be scary, just that it would be strange. I guess turning into a snake because you got a snakeskin jacket is pretty strange. 

So does this story work? Yes, mostly. The idea of an odd store that sells magical items is nothing new, especially in Goosebumps. If they can sell haunted masks, why can't they sell animal clothes. The idea is similar but not exactly the same, so it works. They say you are what you eat, but I guess in this case you are what you wear. 

Sometimes a small aspect of Goosebumps leaps out at me, and I NEED to talk about it. Prepare for one such instance. So R.L. Stine loves to throw in details to prove he knows kids. A lot of time he'll describe their attire. He'll through in references to video games, comic books ect. One example is that in this story he mentions after school they watch the cartoon Animaniacs. This is a well loved real life cartoon from the era. Nice job Stine. Now the thing I NEED to talk about. He immediately follows up this detail by saying they also like to listen to the band "Fruit Bag." This is NOT a real band. I am not even going to google it to determine if this statement is true. It CAN'T be a real band. It's not even a good name for a fake band! How come R.L. Stine can come up with Animaniacs but can't name a single band a kid would be into at that time? How come he can't even come up with a believable fake name! It is the 90s, come up with something that sounds Grungey! Go to a Best Buy and look at the music aisle! Say they like TLC. Come on R.L. Stine, don't go chasing waterfalls!

Now that've ranted about an arbitrary detail let me just say this. I am not sure this is one of the great "tell your friends at a sleepover to scare them" stories, but it will probably make you smile a little bit. It might make a kid consider what it would be like to turn into an animal, and that's pretty cool I guess. I dub this story, "Good Enough."

Rating: 3 out of 5 cursed animal clothing items

Tomorrow we'll be reading "Perfect School" which sure as hell is not about any school I went to growing up. Thanks for reading and check back tomorrow for that review.

Teacher's Pet - 30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps #2

I'm back again for October 2nd with another short story from 30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps. I'll be featuring one short story a day for the whole month so if you need to get caught up check the previous couple days for their entries.

Now, onto the story!

Benjy and Becca are starting the sixth grade. Excited at first to get the COOLEST TEACHER EVER they soon discover that they actually are having weird Mr. Blankenship. How is he weird? Well for one thing he has pet snakes in the classroom. Snakes are a genuinely creepy animal. Not enough legs, weirds people out. I have a rule about legs, no more than 4, no less than 2 (unless you're a pirate.) Plus he feeds the things live mice in front of them. Soon they realized there were tons of glass cages full of snakes. He kept adding more as time went by!

Things are getting out of hand. One snake even crept home in Becca's backpack! Except it didn't because that was a dream. Still if you are having nightmares about all the snakes in your classroom there is probably still a problem there.

A girl in class accidently bumped a cage one day and let one of the mice meals escape. Her punishment was to write an  essay about snake feeding habits. A fitting punishment I guess. For questioning this, Becca herself got slammed with a 10 page assignment!  Plus she has to clean out the snake pages for a week!

But never fear. There is a plan to get even. Operation Mouse Rescue is in the works. The sneak into the school after hours to set free the mice. Unfortunately all these kids are damn clumsy and Becca falls into a cage shattering the glass. Some snakes are on the loose including a very large cobra. In fact, the cobra seems to be getting bigger... and bigger... and now it shifted into a very familiar form. The cobra is none other than Mr. Blankenship!

RUN AWAY! Running away is the unifying solution to so many Goosebumps stories. And it worked. Sort of. You see they did get away, but of course they still had to face their teacher for the rest of the school year. It kinda worked out though. He agreed not to tell parents the kids had snuck into the school after hours. The one caveat is that now the kids have to feed him mice each day after school.

My Thoughts

Snakes are a pretty common animal for people, especially kids, to be afraid of. I've always had a certain uneasiness around them. They just seem so... foreign. So weird. They don't walk, they slither. That is a weird way to get around, don't tell me it's not!

But, for how creepy snakes can be, this story came off a little bit more silly than scary. I would compare it a bit to The Girl Who Cried Monster. In that full length Goosebumps book the librarian was weird and had a dark secret. He turned out to be a monster rather than a snake, though the concept is similar. But for all the scary horrible things your teacher can turn out to be, a secret snake is not super high up on that list.

The ending is played for laughs, which I get. But it could have had the chance to be scarier. What if the teacher wants to eat them? What if the teacher has been eating other kids? Maybe he has eaten the janitor! A snake that big surely would want to fill up on mice. Maybe he needs them to bring him their pet dogs? I don't know!

As a silly tale, it kind of works I guess. I just think maybe it wasn't silly enough to be a really silly story, and the scares were a little lacking.

Rating: 2 snakes out of 5

Check back tomorrow for story #3 for October, "Strained Peas." I admit I am pretty hopefully. Strained peas are terrifying!

#16 One Day at Horrorland

Judging a Book by its Cover:

Look at that horny monster clutching the bloody sign. Is it part of the sign? Or is it an actual monster? Who knows! Also, why are dead trees so spooky? I suppose it's like a plant corpse. Imagine if these illustrations were littered with human corpses instead of tree corpses, now that would be scary. Anyway, presumably Horrorland is some fright based amusement park. Aren't ferris wheels terrifying enough already? Jeeze.

Honestly though, I like this cover. It's ominous and foreboding  while in the cartoony style and the color scheme is nice. It's another rare time when the dual colors of the border compliment the drawing. There is a nice bluey-lavender thing going on. I dig it.

The taglines add to the foreboding but don't offer much in the way of bad puns or lame jokes which is a disappointment. The back asserts, "the next ride might be their last..." While the front beckons, "enter if you dare...." Do I dare? You bet your ass I dare!

Getting Goosebumps:

The desert surrounds the Morris family as they cruise around in a little Toyota looking for the Zoo Gardens Theme Park which is apparently 3 things wrapped up into one. If you love zoos, gardens, and theme parks well then this is the place for you. Unfortunately for Lizzy her parents can't seem to find it. And her brother Luke keeps horsing around with his best friend clay doing manly things like pinching declaring "the mad pincher strikes again." None of this would be happening if Dad didn't forget the map! The best they can do now is turn around and try and find some place to ask for directions.

Eventually they get to a not so desert-like area and pull over to see if there is a map in the glove-box. It just so happens they pull next to a sign for Horrorland, that of course causes Lizzy to try to scream but no sound comes out. All the kids push to go there instead of Zoo Gardens. Mom and dad finally relent. They get there and immediately after getting out of the car, it blows up. I honestly did not see that coming. Since this is in a pre-cell phone everywhere society they are at the mercy of the employees of Horrorland, known as "The Horrors." These Horrors assert that everything will be "taken care of" and that they should just enter the park. I know if there is one thing I want to do after I almost die in a fiery explosion it's to go down a wicked sweet roller coaster. Dad is naturally concerned but Mom thinks the kids should wander around this death trap alone while they figure things out. Makes sense!

The kids see lots of The Horrors around. There is a wolf that even looks like a real wolf and growls like them! Also, oddly there are No Pinching signs which is a shame because Luke is a pinching fiend. They go on The Doom Slide. There are several different numbered boards you can take down the slide. They are warned that one of them is the DOOOOOOM SLLIIIIIIDE that will make them slide FOREVER! It's pretty rad and Lizzy comes out at the bottom with her brother, but they realize clay isn't there. He didn't come out the entrance either. They decide he must have gotten the Doom Slide and thus they must take the same one down. It does raise the question, if the slider on the board slides forever how does the board get back to the top. Do they have an unlimited number of boards? Doesn't that get pricey? Well sadly it does have an end but it is much longer and scarier than the standard slide they had before. At the end they do find Clay who is trying to hide his fright. Now they are in an entirely different part of the park.

In this new area one of the Horrors confronts Lizzy and urges her to get out while she can. Normally a plea such as this in a horror park would go unheeded. When your car blew up just 20 minutes ago in the parking lot, maybe you should be concerned. Naturally, the brush it off. They decide to go to the hall of mirrors which even has mirrors on the floors because if you aren't worried about lawsuits from exploding cars why would you worry about lawsuits from skirt wearing patrons? They all get separated and when the unite the realize the are actually in different rooms separated by glass. Suddenly the walls start closing in on them and Lizzy groans "Graaaaarrrrg!" Wait no, that was Chewbacca. Wrong story. They groan and fight but to no avail. Just when the think the are going to be crushed the floor opens up and they fall outside. Luke loves it, but this proves to be too much for Lizzy and Clay who begin wondering if you can in fact die of fright.

Finally it was decided it was time to seek out their parents. Though Luke seemed to be loving it Lizzy and Clay had had enough and the parents were probably looking for them. They walked trough a path with tree snakes, and through a barn with bats that scared the bajeezus out of Lizzy before finally getting back to the area with the Doom Slide. Mom and dad were nowhere to be found. The asked one of the Horrors if he'd seen them and he assured them he did. They left a half an hour ago. The left a message though, "Goodbye." That doesn't raise their moods! They find themselves near an alligator pound when suddenly someone grabs Lizzy to push her in! Wait nevermind, it's just her dad greeting her.

Now that they have their parents it's time to see about heading out. They do want to ride at least one ride before they go, so they go into a coffin canoe ride as it heads towards the entrance. The float about in coffins and it's actually rather relaxing until the lids slam shut! Everyone understandably loses their shit and thrashes about screaming. Eventually the caskets open and they all agree that it was a little too much. It's time to leave. But none of the ticket windows are open. They don't have a car to leave as theirs is freshly exploded. Also the gate out is padlocked shut. Just as they are really worrying all the horrors of the park show up and thank them for being on their hidden game show on Monster TV! But as there are still several chapters left there has got to be more....

The are ushered into a room where an announcer says they have a minute to make it out alive. Monsters of all sorts rush at them. Awful birds, "furry snakes", manbearpigs, and other such horrors. Everyone is terrified, and convinced it is the end until finally the timer winds down and it is revealed that 3 out of 5 of them survived! Correction, 5 out of 5. Then in Mr. Stine's favorite contrivance the floor comes out from under them and they are face to face with the MC Horror. Dad chews her out, and Lizzy tries to rip off her mask. But it's not a mask! The are REAL monsters and Monster TV is real. It's a channel FOR MONSTERS! Oh Shit! The monsters corner them against a purple pond and assure them it is time to leave, and going into that pond is the only way out. If they don't go willingly the will be pushed. Drowning in purple goo isn't perhaps the most menacing threat, but I suppose it gets the job down.

Lizzy however has a last ditch effort in mind. She remembers all those strange no pinching signs so... THE MAD PINCHER STRIKES AGAIN. And it works. I shit you not it works. Pinching these godless abominations DEFLATES them. They pinch all the can and make a run for the exit. But wait, there car is exploded! Time to steal a bus conveniently sitting there with the keys in it. The gun it and make it out of the park, celebrating the whole way home. When they get home the realize there is a horror stuck to the back of the bus. He has their free passes for next year, DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!

The end.

What I Thought:

Lizzy, like almost of Stine's characters is pretty nondescript and generic. Her sibling like almost all the siblings is kind of a jerk. Her parents are generic parents. Now I know these are kids books meant to appeal to a broad range, but it's getting underwhelming experiencing these flat characters over and over again. I am pretty sure it's possible to create a relate-able children's character with some personality. I guess asking for it 60-some books in a row is pushing it...

Still, this Goosebumps entry like the rest does offer some fun. In fact, it may have more interesting situations being that instead of taking place a suburb over several days it all takes place in one afternoon. An afternoon at an amusement park at that! Still he could have gotten a tad more inventive than "Slide of Doom" and "Bat Barn."


As usual though, the topic staring me in the face is the ending. I wonder what 9 year old me would think of this ending. I have to admit, the Monster TV idea is kind of clever. The pinching however? Seriously? Pinching? It makes the Wicked Witch of the West look like a badass by comparison for being thwarted by a hefty bucket of water. And why deflating? Are the monsters full of air? Could you pop them? How do they have mass enough to push the kids around? Could you use them as a floatation device in case of emergency? Am I thinking about this too much? Yes. Still, why pinching? For God's sake, WHY PINCHING?

In conclusion typical depth-less characters, fun romp through exciting spooky amusement situations, and really dumb ending. Also, someone tried to scream but couldn't. Goosebump book achieved.

Raiting: 3 out of 5 spooooooky ferris wheels (with extra spookiness)

Up Next:

Why I'm Afraid of Bees. It is a strong contender for my least favorite Goosebumps cover ever. You'll see. The little I remember is that his neighbor is a bee farmer, and somehow he turns into a bee. Will there be an homage to classic horror movie, and horror movie remake The Fly? I don't know, because I haven't seen either of those movies. Catch ya on the next blog!