ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 31, 1994                   TAG: 9410120008
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


TALES THAT SELL

JUST what's so addictive about the Goosebumps series - the books so popular that Eleanor Deneka's boys make her stop by Ram's Head Books anytime the family drives within a 2-mile radius of Towers Shopping Center?

``You can't predict what's gonna happen in them,'' fourth grader Benjamin Deneka explains. ``Like in `Monster Blood II,' Evan's dad, he makes this really huge wheel, like for hamsters 10-feet tall, and Evan brings the wheel in and you think the hamster will take it. But, like, he doesn't. Like, he just rips it to shreds!''

Just what makes the writing so suspenseful that 9-year-old Paige Johnson reads a new Goosebumps book as quickly as writer R.L. Stine keeps putting them out - and then rereads it and rereads it until the next month's page-turner hits the shelves?

``They're always about a kid who, like, something scary happens to them,'' says Paige, a north Roanoke County resident who attends Community School. ``Like there's this werewolf story about this family that moves to a swamp, and they've got some rare deer because their dad's a scientist trying to keep the deer alive. Only there's something that keeps attacking the deer, and they think it's a dog that one of the kids finds. Except then they find a werewolf, and I just think it's really neat.''

Paige Johnson, Benjamin Deneka and other area ``Gooseheads'' get so excited when they talk about the quick-selling children's books, they get goosebumps.

They talk about the plots and latest characters at the pool, on the phone, at school. They badger their parents to buy them the latest series installment (now at No. 23 and counting).

And while they may not be experiencing the deepest or most profound children's literature, say both parents and reviewers, at least they are reading.

``I think it's great that there's something available that catches her interest and gets her reading because she's not the natural reading sponge that my son was,'' says Marcy Johnson of her daughter, Paige. ``They're also the perfect incentive for long rides in the car.''

Goosebumps keep Paige so thoroughly entertained that her mother decided to hide four of the books, saving them back for the family's summer driving trip to Canada. The highlight of the vacation: Paige stumbled onto ``Ghostbeach,'' the latest release at the time, in a New Hampshire book store in the White Mountains, giving her five to read instead of four.

Aimed roughly at youngsters from age 8 to 12, Goosebumps are so popular that neither bookstores nor libraries can keep them on their shelves. Sara Logan, the children's coordinator for Roanoke County libraries, keeps a continual list of 100 kids waiting to check out Goosebumps books.

Counting the interest generated for Fear Street, Stine's similar series targeted to teens, the author has single-handedly almost doubled the young-adult library circulation in the past two years.

``They're not the best writing, so some parents and school librarians don't really like them that much, but we as a public library have to meet the needs of a wider audience,'' Logan says. ``I think they're a way for kids to express themselves without actually getting involved in the action; they can vicariously experience horror and acts they might like to participate in, but can't.''

Nobody dies in Goosebumps books, which feature such titles as ``Eat Cheese and Die!'' ``Welcome to Dead House!'' and ``Go Eat Worms!''

Nobody actually eats worms, although the cover of that particular book is teeming with purple nightcrawlers that appear to ooze from a page of math homework.

``The titles and the pictures are worse than the stories,'' explains Sharon Stall, who orders children's books for Ram's Head. ``If a grandma was coming in to buy Christmas gifts for her grandchildren and saw the covers, they would not be her cup of tea.''

Asked if the books keep him up at night, sixth grader Phillip Deneka said no. ``Not really ... except for `Deep Trouble,' which is about a hammerhead shark that tries to get a hold of a kid till a mermaid rescues him. Then the father of the kid sells the mermaid ... for $20 million dollars.''

Phillip said he wasn't as troubled by the dad's double-cross as he was the ``Jaws''-like appearance of the shark. ``We were getting ready to go down to the ocean for vacation. So I kept picturing a huge shark coming up out of the water and BAM!''

His younger brother, Benjamin, believes the books are a bigger hit with boys than girls. ``Most of the time girls get grossed out. Like in `Welcome to Dead House,' they're dead but they have to have living blood to live,'' he explains.

``They're called vampires,'' Benjamin continues. ``And so, if they have too much light on 'em, their flesh melts and they turn into bone. Now most girls would probably think that was sickening.''

Not so, insists Courtney Pritchett and Paige Johnson, who regularly review the Goosebumps plots together during school breaks - part of the fastest-growing preteen book cult in recent history.

`` `You Can't Scare Me' is about this little girl named Courtney who's afraid of mud monsters,'' Courtney explains. ``Her friends, she's always scaring them, so they decide to get her back. One of them's brother puts a rubber snake in Courtney's lunch box - only it doesn't scare Courtney, it scares the teacher.

``The teacher is started to yelp, but like Courtney just stomps off the snake's head.''

Courtney - the girl, not the character - insists she'd never touch a rubber snake, let alone rig a friend's lunch box with one. But she does enjoy scaring her 4-year-old sister by hiding behind the curtain and shouting ``BOO!''

``You wouldn't want your child to select [a Goosebumps book] for a book report,'' advises Stall. ``They're not going to be the Newbery Award winner. They're not going to deal with a lot of deep social issues.

``They're just what I call light-hearted suspense with a touch of TERROR,'' she adds, lowering her voice for dramatic effect. ``Now if you had a child who maybe was sensitive to terror and suspense, then I certainly wouldn't give them a Goosebumps to read, but otherwise most kids read them for fun and pleasure.''

The paperbacks, which retail for under $4, sell about a million copies a month, and have become an unprecedented phenomenon in publishing - in just two years. By contrast, it took the Nancy Drew series decades to achieve the same level of popular success.

``Goosebumps are like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were to our generation - only Goosebumps is something the kids have discovered on their own, which makes them even more appealing,'' says Pat Smith, owner of the Paperback Exchange.

If they engage the imagination, says Marcy Johnson, what more could a parent want? ``I'd rather have Paige reading books than watching Saturday morning cartoons.''

Which is fine with Paige, who says the only time Goosebumps keep her up at night is when she can't put them down. ``It's just fun thinking about what you'd do if you were in that scary situation,'' she says. ``It's fun to imagine there's like ghosts and stuff.''

Asked if she's ever seen a real-live ghost, Paige said yes.

It was at Courtney's house - naturally - during a birthday-party sleepover. ``And we stayed up like all night, till like midnight,'' she explains. ``We turned the lights off, the TV off and then everybody saw a clear white shape move across the room and disappear into the other wall. And everybody saw it, so that proves it's real.''

Asked if she was scared, she said, ``kind of, but not really.''

She just settled back under her covers - flashlight in hand - and began re-reading her latest dog-eared Goosebumps book.



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