Goosebumps 11 – The Haunted Mask

R. L. Stine's The Haunted Mask is a Halloween Goosebumps story for 8 year olds about a girl who's tired of always being the one who screams.

What happens

Carly Beth is eleven, small for her age and very easy to scare. Her friends Steve and Chuck think that's hilarious. They spend hours dreaming up new ways to make her jump.

At lunch they give her a sandwich with a real worm in it. At the Science Fair, Steve shouts that his tarantula has escaped, then pinches the back of her leg. The whole stage laughs, teachers included. Can you imagine?

So this Halloween she wants revenge. She doesn't want to be a cute duck in the costume her mum made. She wants to be truly terrifying.

On Halloween evening she finds a little party shop with its lights still on. In a back room are masks so horrible they look real, and the owner in his black cape says they're not for sale. She talks him into selling her one anyway, for all thirty dollars of her savings.

It works almost too well. Her voice comes out deep and growly. Her little brother Noah, dressed as a cockroach, is terrified. And the mask is surprisingly hard to get off.

You feel how fed up Carly Beth is, so you really want her to win. Then the mask starts to change how she feels as well as how she looks, and that's where the real shivers kick in. There's a brilliant creepy touch too. She takes the sculpture her mum made of her own head and carries it on a broomstick!

There are a few things to be ready for. The worm sandwich is gross, and the teasing is mean and constant. The masks in that back room are properly gruesome (one has a nail through the eye). A child who's been on the receiving end of jokes like these might find the opening chapters close to home.

They'll also be cheering Carly Beth on, though. If your reader loves Halloween and a story with a bit of bite, this is a great one for October.

What to read next

For another girl who'd love to get her own back, Be Careful What You Wish For is a good follow-up. Sam is the tallest and clumsiest girl in her class, and a strange woman in a red shawl offers her three wishes.