Rediscovering Goosebumps: My Top 5 Favorite Books

Well, my 12-year-old self would feel accomplished: I finished reading all of the original 62 Goosebumps books in a year, for free.

I tend to do a lot of side-quests in life, and this was yet another one, spurred by going through my boxes of books being kept at my parents’ house over winter vacation 2023. I had re-read One Day at Horrorland in the last ten years or so because it was the book I had the most vivid memories of, but I decided that I would try to read all of the original 62 books in the series.

It would have been impossible to read them in the order in which they were released, and rather pointless, as many of them are monster-of-the-week stories minus the few arcs that cover a few books. I read them in random order, and was able to download all from various Ohio libraries’ ebook collections, minus a few I borrowed from Pennsylvania’s ebook collection.

Without further ado, I present my top five original Goosebumps books.

cover featuring a person in overalls holding a grotesque green monster mask up to their face that has glowing yellow eyes and an open, drooling mouth full of sharp fangs; “If looks could kill…”

The Haunted Mask

The Haunted Mask is universally loved by Goosebumps readers. Its plot is fairly straight forward: girl who scares easily plots Halloween revenge against her friends who always scare her. She goes to the new “Spirit Halloween”-type costume shop that opened in her town to buy a scary mask to enact her revenge, but to her disappointment, it’s closed the day she goes. The owner, however, is around and lets her in. She finds her way into a back room with some of the most hideous masks she’s ever seen, but the owner refuses to sell her one, saying that she’ll be sorry if she buys one. She ends up getting a mask anyways, and once she puts it on, finds herself behaving in strange ways and speaking in a strange voice that isn’t hers. When it comes time to take off the mask, she finds that it’s been fused to her skin… and so the horror begins.

The protagonist of this book, Carly Beth, is beloved by many fans. In fact, a graphic novel version of the book was recently released, in addition to a television episode in the 90s. The original book featured a removable cardboard mask inside and many artists have recreated brilliant versions of the mask via various means, including 3D printing.

According to the Goosebumps Wiki, this is the book Stine’s most proud of. It certainly deserves the number one spot and neatly encapsulates Stine’s style as a writer–a little creepy, a little funny, with chapters that end on absolute Grand Canyons of cliff-hangers that easily make 12-year-old children keep reading past their bedtime.

Tim Jacobus‘s artwork for the original cover is one of the most recognizable Goosebumps covers. He illustrated 60 of the original 62 Goosebumps covers. One of the things I love about the cover is not only the creepiness of the mask, like the drool spilling from the lower jaw of the mask, but Carly Beth’s fashion–an oversized purple t-shirt under denim overalls is very mid-90s. I know I spent a good deal of the mid-to-late 90s wearing denim overalls and oversized t-shirts–so much so that one year my friends pooled their money together to buy me a pair of denim overalls.

If I were to recommend any Goosebumps book to someone, it’d be this one.

One Day At Horrorland

cover featuring a large green monster with horns and claws behind a billboard that reads “Welcome to Horrorland/Where Nightmares Come to Life!”; “Enter if you dare…”

My mom went through my collection of Goosebumps books and sent me the numbers of the books I owned. She thought it was strange that I had every book from numbers 1 to 51, minus book number 16 and book number 48.

“Oh, number 16 is One Day at Horrorland. I pulled that out to reread it a few years ago so it should be there somewhere.”

I very distinctly remember reading One Day at Horrorland in one go, on a dark night with fireworks. I believe it was the 4th of July but people in my small town set off fireworks for any kind of celebration, so it may have been another date.

When it came down to the actual plot of the book, I didn’t really remember anything beyond that a family that gets lost, discovers the Horrorland theme park, and then has their car explode behind them, so they’re pretty much forced to enter the theme park. There, they are subjected to scary theme park rides and a staff of hideous green monsters with horns who won’t tell anyone what’s really going on in this strange place.

The book is typical of Stine’s Goosebumps series, with a unique twist at the end of the story and a throwback to some minor foreshadowing from the beginning of the book. There’s also a heavy dose of Stine-esque humor that involves the foreshadowing. Stine never abandoned his roots in comedy.

Stylistically, Tim Jacobus created yet another iconic cover, framed by the ever-popular 90s teal and purple colors. (The O-rings on my braces were frequently teal and purple.) A giant Horror, a green monster/demon with ram horns, is peering over the edge of a billboard, either as part of the billboard or perhaps… as a real giant monster keeping a look out for unsuspecting humans.

Several spin-offs were created, including a PC game titled “Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland” that featured the amazing Jeff Goldbum as Dracula. I remember wandering around the theme park’s lobby in the game, and the mummy maze scene that scared the crap out of me as a child.

Horrorland went on to become its own series within the Goosebumps universe, with an initial sequel called “Return to Horrorland” and then a horror novella series called “Goosebumps Horrorland” that features other beloved Goosebumps characters making their appearance at Horrorland.

How to Kill a Monster

cover featuring a locked door slowly opening and two large furry green paws coming out; “Step 1: Run. Step 2: Run faster.”

As a child, I had one recurring nightmare. It involved a monster locked inside a room that was trying to escape, an old piano playing some creepy dark notes while I tried to run down a staircase to escape a house.

As the years went on, it was less nightmare and more vivid dream. I didn’t know where any of it came from. Usually I can trace back parts of my dreams to things that either happen in real life or the books I read, but I couldn’t place any part of this particular nightmare.

And then I reread “How To Kill a Monster” and it all made sense.

Two step-siblings are sent to visit their grandparents who live in a swamp in Georgia, and notice that their grandmother seems to be making a bit too much food for just the four of them. Then they find out about the locked room upstairs that is, under no circumstances, to be opened. One game of hide-and-seek later, something goes very, very wrong, and they find themselves locked in the house alone with whoever, or whatever, was behind that locked door…

The cover really screams neon-glo 90s with its bright colors, despite the story taking place in what one would presume to be a dark swamp. It also features several advertisements for the Goosebumps television series on the cover.

I really enjoyed the twist on this one, but the ending was a little bit of a disappointment. It felt like Stine didn’t really know how to end the story after revealing the final twist.

Still, the book obviously sank its claws deep into my unconscious for many years, and that’s why it’s on my top five.

The Ghost Next Door

cover featuring a pair of ghostly feet on a welcome mat as someone opens the front door of a house; “There’s a strange new kid on the block…”

Of all the Goosebumps books, this one legitimately had me on my toes, trying to figure out exactly how the ending would be pulled off.

Hannah is convinced the new boy who lives next door, Danny, is a ghost. He’s pale, he often disappears, and when did his family move into that once-abandoned house, anyway?

This was one of the more complex books in the Goosebumps series and, iconically, featured one of the two actual deaths written into the series. Things are certainly scary in Stine’s world, but there is little death–and when it happens, it’s more of a “never really existed in the first place” or “happened in the past” situation. According to the Wiki, “The Ghost Next Door” is also one of the few that has a “happy, albeit bittersweet” ending, and one of the few written in the third person.

The cover of this one is muted greens and golds, with two ghostly pair of legs standing on a welcome mat in front of an open door.

This book is well-crafted and pulls at your heartstrings in a way the other books in the series don’t, and it sticks out from the rest of the original 62 books.

Attack of the Mutant

cover featuring a supervillain jumping away from his pink and green headquarters; “He’s no superhero. He’s a supervillain!”

Based on cover art alone, featuring a jumping supervillain in a blue outfit and mask in front of a strangely shaped hot pink and green building, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be interested in this book. I’m not a big superhero fan. I don’t know my Marvel from my DC, but this was a fantastic little story.

The protagonist is a big comic book collector, much to the dismay of his parents, and one day he comes across a building that looks exactly like the headquarters of a supervillain in the one comic book he’s obsessed with. He returns a few days later, and the building is gone, but he goes home to read a new comic stating that the building was cloaked in an Invisibility Cloak… could it be? Did he actually stumble upon the real headquarters of the supervillain?

I’m looking forward to watching the original TV episode, as the book created some very vivid imagery in my mind. It would be interesting to see it recreated with today’s special effects, as I’m sure the 90s special effects are cringy.