By R. L. Stine
Scholastic, 2014
Genre
Horror
Awards
None Known
Review
When Mario, his brother, and their friend Ivy decide to explore the basement of Mario's new creepy home across from a graveyard, they discover a tunnel leading from the graveyard underground to an area under their basement. When they see the zombies climbing the ladder to get from the tunnel to the home and hear their mother coming home, the boys beat the zombies off the ladder and make their way up, closing the door behind them...and leaving Ivy stuck, turned into a zombie herself! Years later, Ivy is still waiting to get revenge for her death when Mario is a grandfather and his grandkids are having a Halloween party in the basement, where Ivy makes her move. After dealing with the zombies, Mario and his grandchildren think they can take a breath, when their new neighbors show up and reveal themselves to be vampires! True to its name, this new addition the long line of Goosebump books will send shivers down the spines of middle school readers as they eagerly tear through the cliffhanger chapters to see how the characters will survive the terrors of the night.
Opinion
I have never been much of an R. L. Stine fan. I find his writing to be choppy, unengaging and predictable. I also dislike how his books, like this one, seem to end with yet another scary event, causing the reader to wonder what happened to the characters and how anyone could be alive in a world where monstrosities rise around every corner the second the first one wakes. This book was no exception, but for those readers who do like his former books, they will love this one. True to his style, Stine includes false monster sightings to increase the suspense and has middle school aged protagonists left to fight off the terrors when their parents don't believe them (though their grandfather obviously does).
Ideas
Great for a Halloween display, a horror/ghost story display, or a display about zombies, since they are a very popular topic currently.
