"The Goosebumps Series" Returns

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


After an eight-year hiatus, R.L. Stine, the Stephen King of the middle school set, is back with a new "Goosebumps" series.

Born in Mississippi but now a New Yorker, Stine made a big splash in the 1990s with "Goosebumps," a collection of more than 60 children's novels that are often violent and macabre. In fact, the series was on the American Library Association's 1990-99 list of the 100 most frequently challenged books. But so were "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in Rye."

The latest two Goosebumps books (Scholastic; $5.99 each; ages 8-12) herald the coming of 10 more. Each will give the reader a book in two parts. The first part may bring back an original villain and the story that spawned him or it may introduce a new bad guy.
-- Post Gazette