The Goosebumps series of books written by R.L. Stine was and still is one of my all time favorite series of transitional chapter books. The first of the series was "Welcome to Dead House" and has been followed by 61 classic Goosebumps books. R.L. Stine released a 2000 series and most recently a "Welcome to Horror Land" series. Each book is unique and tells a very different story that will chill you to the bone.
I like these books because it can give students a way to discover different genres of writing. The style of writing in these books borders on scary/mystery. I think that for children who like to discover the different types of writing and/or like these types of books will love that they are a part of a teachers library.
While I think these books are suitable for young children I think that teachers should still warn students that they are scary and if a child doesn't like that then they may not be ready to read these books. For the students who are ready I think that they would be a great book to have as an author study or book club.
In about 6th grade through maybe even early high school, I loved R.L. Stine's Fear Street series. I also liked Christopher Pike books around the same time.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if I have ever read a Goosebumps book, although I have some in my classroom library. You mentioned that they are each unique. Typically transitional series books do have some patterns/similarities that help the reader to start to feel comfortable with the series. Would you say that this is true with Goosebumps even though each story is unique?
Maybe I should have worded that differently. The theme and style typically stay the same through the series. Sometimes the same characters are used or there is a sequel, but for the most part the stories and characters are unique to the individual book. I think that is what I loved about them. Every story was new and scared me more than the previous one! I really love scary books, movies, etc. The scarier the better even when I was a kid I loved to be scared.
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