[Monday Reading and Quill Junior] RL Stine’s Goosebumps as viewed by a young reader

Myra here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (brainchild of Sheila at BookJourney). Since two of our friends, Linda from Teacher Dance and Tara from A Teaching Life have been joining this meme for quite awhile now, we thought of joining this warm and inviting community.

Last Week’s Review and Miscellany Posts

We’re also inviting everyone to join our Check Off your Reading List Challenge 2014.

Sign up here to join us! Here is the October-December linky.  We are also very excited to share that Pansing Books will be giving away copies of Cherub Dark Sun by Robert Muchamore to two lucky CORL participants from October-December.

Carrie Gelson of There is a Book for That is also hosting #mustreadin2014.

On occasion we do receive a few book reviews written by children that we feature here in GatheringBooks. My 12 year old daughter has kindly agreed to review these Goosebumps books (totally in keeping with our paranormal reading theme) for Pansing Books.

The Blob That Ate Everyone

Written by: R. L. Stine
Published by: Scholastic, 1997
Review Copy provided by Pansing Books

This Goosebumps book was an okay book. It wasn’t the best (like The Haunted School), but it also wasn’t the worst either (like Say Cheese and Die). The Blob That Ate Everyone is about a boy named Zackie who really wants to be a horror writer. One day, Zackie and his friend named Alex were walking down the street. They both came upon a weird, old, abandoned shop. Zackie went inside and found an old trypewriter. Zackie brings it home and starts writing his horror story about a blob eating everyone, but something seems a bit odd with the typewriter. It looks like whatever Zackie types eventually comes true! What do you think will Zackie do now?

What I liked about this book is that it warns children that they should be careful what they wish for, and be cautious about what they do. I feel that having a paranormal power like that is exciting, but it also could be really dangerous. You might end up hurting people without knowing it, and yourself too! I rate this book a 3 out of 5.

Deep Trouble II

Written by: R. L. Stine
Published by: Scholastic, 1997
Review copy provided by Pansing Books.

I haven’t read the first Deep Trouble but I think that it’s ok because I still understood the story and they have different plots. Billy and his sister Sheena visit their uncle for the summer. The place is amazing. People go snorkeling or just take a swim and also go for a boat ride. It sounds like a really nice vacation place to me.

But something odd started to happen. Why are all the fish freakishly big? Is it an experiment that has gone terribly wrong? Or it just a potion? You have to read the book to find out.

I feel that this book is not creepy at all which disappointed me. I do not like Sheena’s character because she pulls such horrible pranks on her brother when there are bigger things to worry about. I like how there are secret agents that are spying on them to get more information. I rate this book a 3 out of 5.

 

Myka Aaviela Bacsal

is a spunky 12 year old book nerd turning 13 this December. She loves to sing, play basketball, watch movies, and read books in her free time. She is a huge Goosebumps freak and enjoys reading graphic novels. She will be attending the Singapore School of the Arts as a Music student in January 2015.  If you want her to read and review comic books/middle grade/ young adult fiction, send us an email at gatheringbooks (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Currently Reading… (the Mommy Myra Version this time)

I have just finished reading the last book in the Grisha trilogy, Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo. I might have already said this before, but it bears repeating – this is the best fantasy YA literature I’ve read this year. My heart was literally racing as I read the book, and a part of me was thoroughly crushed at one point. It was a satisfying, albeit bittersweet, conclusion to a series that caught me by surprise in all its twists and turns, proving once again that plot-driven books do not necessarily need to be filled with flat and one-dimensional characters.

I shall review this before our fantasy theme ends when I finally find the words to describe how I feel about this book. Needless to say, all three books moved me deeply.

I am late reading this GatheringReaders novel for November: Amy Timberlake’s One Came Home. I started reading this book on the bus from New York to Washington DC. I am sure my GatheringReaders book club members must be waiting for the questions I will be posting for our virtual discussion. Give me another week to read the book, and will have the post up soonest. Now traveling from DC back to San Diego, where I am hoping things would settle a little bit somewhat before we do the West Coast leg of our tour (LA and San Francisco). Apologies to Monday reading friends for not having visited the past two weeks with things being absolutely crazy. Again, I promise to make it up to you! 🙂