Mostly Ghostly 06 – Let’s Get This Party Haunted!

R. L. Stine's Let's Get This Party Haunted is a Mostly Ghostly story for 9 year olds about a boy whose birthday plans keep getting "helped" by two ghosts.

What happens

Max is about to turn twelve. He and his new friend Quentin are rehearsing a magic and juggling act for his party, and Max is desperate for Traci Wayne to come. If she comes, all the cool kids will follow.

The trouble is that whenever Max gets near Traci, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. All that comes out is "Hunh hunh hunh."

And then there are Nicky and Tara. They're the ghosts who live in his house, and Max is the only person who can see or hear them. They're lonely and they really want to help.

Who needs enemies with friends like these? Their big idea to impress Traci is to fly Max's bike over two parked cars. He lands right on top of her.

Max finally gets his yes at the pottery wheel, with clay flying everywhere. Traci will come to the party as long as he promises never to come near her again!

It's the sixth Mostly Ghostly book, and it's very silly and quite creepy at the same time. Max has to think fast whenever someone spots floating objects (the bikes are "dirt bikes", apparently, looking for dirt). Big brother Colin keeps listing all the painful birthday "presents" he won't be giving Max, then giving them anyway (it's played for laughs, but some kids won't find a big brother like that very funny).

Underneath the jokes there's a proper shiver. A boy in black has been following Max for weeks, and his face changes from a boy's to an old man's. His message is that the ghosts are going to kill Max. Nicky and Tara, meanwhile, think there's something very wrong with Quentin.

So who should Max believe? No spoilers here!

If your reader likes spooky stories that make them giggle more than hide under the covers, this is a fun one. Max is a very likeable narrator, always trying to do the right thing and getting it hilariously wrong.

What to read next

If they'd like to meet Nicky and Tara from the very beginning, Who Let the Ghosts Out is the first book, and it opens on a cold night when the two of them can't work out why nobody will look at them.