R.L. Stine Continues to Frighten

Written  by Jon Williams

The calendar may have just flipped over to August, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s never too early to start thinking about Halloween. You can look forward to plenty of Halloween media ideas from us between now and October, and what better way to kick it off than with a master of the creepy tale, a man whose work has been the basis for countless pleasant shivers in the dead of night? After an early career writing humour aimed at kids, R.L. Stine eventually came to the conclusion that he’d rather frighten them. His first kids’ horror novel, Blind Date, was published in 1986, and the rest is history. According to his website, he’s written well over 300 books in the intervening 32 years, including a number of wildly popular series.

By far his most well-known series is Goosebumps. Begun in 1992 with Welcome to Dead House, the classic series ran through 1997 and comprised a total of 62 books. Goosebumps has taken on a life of its own with a number of spinoff and companion series, some of which continue to this day. One of those is called SlappyWorld, featuring Slappy, a ventriloquist’s dummy come to life with scary stories of his own to tell. Slappy made his first appearance very early on, in 1993’s Night of the Living Dummy, and became a primary antagonist in the 1995 follow-up. From there he took on a life of his own, so to speak, appearing in several HorrorLand books (yet another Goosebumps-adjacent series) before spawning his own series in 2017’s Slappy Birthday to You. There are currently five books in the series, with Escape from Shudder Mansion just releasing late in July, and more to come.

Of course, popular as it was and still is, Goosebumps was not Stine’s first book series. That honour goes to Fear Street, which started in 1989 with The New Girl. Recent titles in this series include Party Games and Don’t Stay Up Late. Also released in late July, You May Now Kill the Bride is the first book in a new Return to Fear Street series. And Fear Street fans can look forward to renewed interest in the series, with Fox recently announcing plans for three theatrical films to be based on stories from the books.

And although Stine has made his name in the world of publishing, he is certainly no stranger to the screen. As his writing career was gaining traction in the early 1990s, he helped create and wrote for the children’s TV series Eureeka’s Castle. Shortly thereafter, Goosebumps was turned into an anthology TV series that ran for four seasons. In 2007, the movie The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It was made, loosely adapted from a book of Stine’s short stories, and that too was spun off into a successful anthology series, winning a number of Daytime Emmys among other awards. And in 2015, Goosebumps became a feature film starring Jack Black as R.L. Stine himself. A sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, is due in theatres in October.

R.L. Stine has been giving young readers the creeps for more than thirty years now, and in so doing, has inspired generations of kids to develop a love of reading that has carried them into adulthood (and adults who grew up reading him as kids should check out Red Rain, his grown-up horror novel written in tribute to longtime fans). As his popularity expands with each new book and movie, continue to share his work with eager young readers and listeners. You can search his name on our website for all his works we carry in audiobook and Playaway, and point your patrons to hoopla, where they can find a wide selection of his books in both audio and eBook.