Goosebumps 9 – Welcome to Camp Nightmare

R. L. Stine's Welcome to Camp Nightmare is a spooky Goosebumps story for 8 year olds about a boy's very first summer camp.

What happens

Billy is twelve and he's never been away from home before. He admits he's a bit of a worrier. On the long bus ride out to Camp Nightmoon, his mum's goodbye keeps bothering him. Why did she say "do your best" and not "have a good time"?

Then the driver drops everyone in the middle of nowhere and drives off. Strange, snapping animals come racing at them across the dusty ground. A man fires a rifle to scare them away. He's Uncle Al, the camp director, and he doesn't explain a thing.

And that's only the first afternoon! There are real snakes in Mike's bed. There's no nurse. Their counsellor Larry doesn't seem to like them much. And there's a tilting, boarded-up cabin on the hill, the Forbidden Bunk, that nobody will talk about.

The fun is that Billy notices everything and tries very hard to stay sensible. You meet his whole cabin fast. Mike is nervous, Jay is loud and sporty, and Colin wears silver sunglasses even after dark. By lights-out you feel as if you're bunking with them.

It's worth knowing there's a bit more real danger here than in some of these books. One of the snakes bites Mike, and his hand bleeds and swells up. Uncle Al's welcome speech is all about hungry bears that attack campers. And Larry warns the boys that something called Sabre will rip their hearts out if they go out at night.

A child who's about to go off to camp for the first time might want to save this one for afterwards (or skip it altogether). A reader who loves a spooky campfire story will gobble it up.

There's homesickness in it too, handled very gently. Billy is too embarrassed to ring home on day two, which feels very true.

What to read next

For another twelve-year-old whose summer takes a strange turn, try The Ghost Next Door. Hannah is bored and lonely with her friends away, until a red-haired boy turns up living in the empty house next door and keeps vanishing.