Goosebumps facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Goosebumps

Author	R. L. Stine
Cover artist	Tim Jacobus Mark Nagata Craig White Brandon Dorman
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Scholastic Corporation
Published	Original series: July 1992 – December 1997 Spin-off series: October 1994 – February 2008 – present
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback) Audiobook E-book
No. of books	240 (List of books)

Goosebumps is a super popular series of scary books written by an American author named R. L. Stine. These stories are about kids, usually around 12-15 years old, who find themselves in really spooky situations. Often, these situations involve ghosts, monsters, or other strange, supernatural things.

Between 1992 and 1997, 62 books were released in the main Goosebumps series. R. L. Stine also wrote many other spin-off series, like Goosebumps Series 2000, Give Yourself Goosebumps, and Goosebumps HorrorLand. There was even a series called Goosebumps Gold that was planned but never came out.

Goosebumps has become much more than just books! It has led to a TV show, video games, comic books, and lots of cool merchandise. There are even feature films where Jack Black plays a fictional version of R. L. Stine.

The books were first published by Scholastic Press in the United States. Goosebumps stories mix different types of writing, including horror, comedy, fantasy, adventure, and mystery.

Since the first book, Welcome to Dead House, came out in July 1992, the series has been a huge hit all over the world. Kids and even older readers love them! As of October 2022, over 400 million copies have been sold in 35 languages. This makes Goosebumps the second-best-selling book series in history, right after Harry Potter! At one point, it was the best-selling book series ever, selling over 4 million books a month. Many individual Goosebumps books have even appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list for children.

What Makes Goosebumps Scary and Fun?

The Goosebumps series fits into many types of stories, but it's mostly known for horror and thriller. However, R. L. Stine himself says they are "scary books that are also funny."

Characters and Settings

Each Goosebumps book features different child characters and new places. The main characters are usually regular kids, either boys or girls. In these stories, the kids often find themselves in strange or isolated places. This could be anywhere from a normal suburban house to a boarding school, a foreign village, or a campsite. Often, the main characters have just moved to a new neighborhood or are visiting relatives.

How the Stories Are Written

The books in the Goosebumps series usually have a similar plot. Kids get into scary situations, and things get spooky! R. L. Stine is known for writing these stories very quickly; some were even finished in just six days. Most of the books are told from the main character's point of view, and they often end with surprising twist endings. They feature a kind of weird horror, where characters meet strange and supernatural things.

R. L. Stine has a few rules he follows when writing Goosebumps. He says he never has anyone die in his stories. Also, the kids in his books are never put into situations that are too serious or truly dangerous. All Goosebumps books are written so that kids from 3rd to 7th grade can easily read them.

Where Did the Ideas Come From?

R. L. Stine has shared where he gets his ideas for the Goosebumps books. He remembered reading the famous Tales from the Crypt comic books when he was young, and he says they inspired him. Some characters and books in the series were also inspired by other books and movies. For example, the creepy character Slappy the Dummy was inspired by the classic story The Adventures of Pinocchio.

Some of Stine's ideas even came from real life! He got the idea for the book The Haunted Mask after his son, Matt, had a Halloween mask that was really hard to take off. Stine also uses his own childhood fears to help him write. He said, "Luckily, I have a great memory. As I write a story, I can remember what it feels like to be afraid and panicky." Stine often thinks of a cool title first, and then the title helps him create the whole story.

Two common ideas in the series are kids winning against evil, and kids facing scary situations and using their own smarts and imagination to escape. Stine doesn't try to teach moral lessons in his books. He says his books are "strictly reading motivation," meaning they are just meant to make kids want to read more!

Main Characters and Villains

Here are some of the characters who appear in many Goosebumps books, TV shows, and movies.

• Slappy the Dummy is the main bad guy in the Night of the Living Dummy stories and is like the mascot for the whole series.
• The Haunted Mask is the villain from the book series of the same name.
• The Horrors are the main villains in Goosebumps #16: One Day at Horrorland and the HorrorLand book series.
• The Monster Blood is the gooey monster from the book series of the same name.
• Amanda Benson is the main character of the very first Goosebumps book, Welcome to Dead House.
• Carly Beth Caldwell is one of the main characters who appears often in the Haunted Mask series.
• Evan Ross is the main character of the first four books of Monster Blood.
• Lizzy Morris is the main character of the first two HorrorLand books and a big part of the HorrorLand series.
• The Menace is the main villain of the first part of the HorrorLand series.
• Jonathan Chiller is the main villain of the second part of the Goosebumps HorrorLand series.
• Ray Gordon is the narrator character of the last part of the second arc of Goosebumps HorrorLand.
• Billy Deep is the main character of the Deep Trouble series.

The Original Goosebumps Series

After R. L. Stine had success with his scary books for older teens, a co-founder of Parachute Press (the company that created the series) asked him to write scary books for younger kids. Stine says he got the name "Goosebumps" from a TV ad in TV Guide that said, "It’s goosebumps week on Channel 11."

He first agreed to write six books for the publisher Scholastic. But the series became so popular that he ended up writing 62 books in the original series! The first book, Welcome to Dead House, came out in July 1992. The series was first aimed at girls, but both boys and girls loved it equally. About half of the fan mail Stine received was from boys. The amazing cover art for this series was mostly done by Tim Jacobus. Later, 32 of the original books were re-released with new artwork and called Classic Goosebumps.

Other Goosebumps Book Series

There are several other Goosebumps book series that offer different kinds of stories.

Short Story Collections

The books in the Tales to Give You Goosebumps and Goosebumps Triple Header series are collections of short stories. Each book has several different scary tales inside. From 1994 to 1997, six Tales to Give You Goosebumps books were published. Two Goosebumps Triple Header books were released from 1997 to 1998.

Choose Your Own Adventure Books

Fifty Give Yourself Goosebumps books were published from 1995 to 2000, starting with Escape from the Carnival of Horrors. These books are like gamebooks, where you get to choose what happens next in the story! This means they have many different endings, depending on the choices you make. Many of the cover illustrations for this series were done by Mark Nagata.

Goosebumps Series 2000

Because sales of the original Goosebumps were slowing down, Scholastic and R. L. Stine decided to create Goosebumps Series 2000. From 1998 to 2000, 25 books in this series were published, starting with Cry of the Cat. These books were written in a similar style to the original series, but Stine said they were "much scarier." Tim Jacobus also illustrated the covers for this series.

Goosebumps HorrorLand and Most Wanted

The Goosebumps series made a comeback in 2008 with the first book in the Goosebumps HorrorLand series, Revenge of the Living Dummy. Before this, a new Goosebumps book hadn't been published in almost 10 years! Stine decided to start writing Goosebumps again because he received so many letters asking for new books. Nineteen Goosebumps HorrorLand books were published, and they usually featured two stories in one book.

The series continued in 2012 with new stories featuring some of the most famous villains from the series, like Slappy the Dummy and the Lawn Gnomes. The first book of the spin-off series Goosebumps Most Wanted, Planet of the Lawn Gnomes, came out in October 2012.

Goosebumps on Screen and More!

Goosebumps has been adapted into many other forms of media, bringing the scares to life in new ways.

Audiobooks

Walt Disney Records and Scholastic Audiobooks have turned many Goosebumps books into audiobooks since 1996. You can listen to the spooky stories!

TV Shows

In the 1990s, a Goosebumps TV show was made in Canada. This TV show ran for four seasons from 1995 to 1998. It mainly featured stories based on the Goosebumps books, like The Haunted Mask. The TV series was shown in over 100 countries and was the number one children's TV show in the United States for three years!

A brand new Goosebumps live-action TV series was announced in 2020. It started streaming on Disney+ on Friday, October 13, 2023.

Movies

A Goosebumps movie was released on October 16, 2015. It starred Jack Black as a made-up version of R. L. Stine. In the movie, Stine's scary characters literally jump out of his books! He has to hide from his own creepy creations. Dylan Minnette played Zach Cooper, and Odeya Rush played Hannah, Stine's fictional daughter. In the film, Hannah's father, R. L. Stine, keeps all the monsters locked up in his books. When Zach accidentally lets the monsters out, Zach, Hannah, and Stine work together to put them back.

A sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, came out on October 12, 2018. Jack Black returned in this movie, and new main characters were played by Madison Iseman, Caleel Harris, and Jeremy Ray Taylor.

Video Games

There are several Goosebumps video games! Two early games for PC were Escape from HorrorLand (1996) and Attack of the Mutant (1997). Scholastic released a game called Goosebumps HorrorLand in 2008.

A game called Goosebumps: The Game, which was a story that happened before the 2015 movie, was released on October 13, 2015. A mobile game, Goosebumps: Night of Scares, came out shortly after. Another mobile game, Goosebumps: HorrorTown, was released in 2018. The latest game, Goosebumps Dead of Night, came out in 2020 for PC and consoles.

Comic Books

A comic book series called Goosebumps Graphix was created based on the original books. The first one, Creepy Creatures, came out in 2006. Later, IDW Comics released a new Goosebumps comic series starting in 2017.

Other Cool Stuff

Goosebumps has also inspired lots of other merchandise, like T-shirts, board games, puzzles, hats, fake skulls, dolls, and even fake blood! Goosebumps was also turned into a stage play in 1998 and a stage musical in 2016 called Goosebumps The Musical, based on the book Goosebumps: Phantom of the Auditorium.

There's an official Goosebumps website that gets millions of visits each month. An attraction based on the series, the Goosebumps HorrorLand Fright Show and FunHouse, opened in 1997 at Disney-MGM Studios. It had a stage play with characters from the series and a funhouse with a maze of mirrors.

A Quick Note on Rights

For a while, there was a disagreement between Scholastic (the publisher) and Parachute Press (the company that helped create the series) about who owned the rights to Goosebumps. This led to some legal discussions. In 2003, they reached an agreement. Scholastic gained full ownership of the Goosebumps name and all other rights to the series.

Images for kids

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  An illustration of R. L. Stine with some of his creations, from his autobiography.

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  R. L. Stine, the author of the Goosebumps series.

See also

In Spanish: Goosebumps para niños

• Fear Street
• Gooflumps
• Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids
• Shivers (novel series)