Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls by R.L. Stine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls is the 31st-book in the Classic Goosebumps reprint series. I read this one in a couple hours after receiving it for Christmas.
I am happy to report it’s definitely one of the fun ones. It’s not perfect, but as Goosebumps go, it’s pretty darn good. A great way to pass a relaxing afternoon.
In this story we meet Spencer and he’s a little awkward, not necessarily one of the popular boys. He gets picked on a bit, made worse when he is forced to read an essay he had written aloud to the class and his teacher has nothing but praise for him.
How dare she!? But when the teacher notices the kids turning on Spencer, she doubles down. Spencer’s story involved the local graveyard and the teacher comes up with the idea to take a field trip there the very next day.
In absolute Goosebumps logic, that’s exactly what they do, pre-planning and permission slips be damned!!
Her idea is for the kids to do some grave rubbings and she’ll ultimately turn it into a local history lesson, if nothing else.
As the kids are exploring the graveyard, Spencer accidentally knocks over an eerie-looking tombstone. After that, all heck hits the fan for poor Spencer.
This story involves graveyard ghouls inhabiting bodies and wrecking havoc on the town. Spencer does have one good friend, Audra, and she’s fairly involved in the action as well.
I fully expected this to be one of the stories where Stine strings you along, all to discover at the end that it was a dream, or prank. I’m not saying that that didn’t happen, but I did give it 4-stars, so…
There were a couple details that progressed the plot that I wasn’t necessarily crazy about; mostly involving animals. Overall though, that didn’t affect my enjoyment too much.
I did think that the ending was super fun. It left a sinister little smirk on my face. OMG, Stine, you tricky bugger.
I would recommend this one to Goosebumps fans. It definitely has that classic formula that made me nostalgic for the horror stories of younger years. I’ll never stop reading these books. It’s just part of who I am. Well done by Stine!
