Mostly Ghostly 07 – Freaks and Shrieks

R. L. Stine's Freaks and Shrieks is a spooky comedy for 9 year olds in which one boy is asked to swap brains with a chimp.

What happens

It's the seventh Mostly Ghostly book, so the set-up is already in place. Max Doyle is the only person who can see Nicky and Tara. They're ghosts who used to live in his house, and they don't know how they ended up dead. Their parents, ghosts too, have gone off to find answers.

Nicky and Tara like to "help" Max. On Pet Day that means Tara grabbing the stuffed fish Max borrowed off his dad's wall and hurling it across the classroom. It hits a girl on the head, cracks in half and lets out a stream of cockroaches (Max is in major trouble, obviously).

Then a little man with a white beard starts following the ghosts down the street. That shouldn't be possible. Nobody but Max can see them.

He's Dr Smollet, a scientist who says he worked alongside their mum and dad. There's someone at his lab who was there on the day the whole family died, and who might even know how to make them alive again. The witness is Mr Harvey. Mr Harvey is a chimp in red bike shorts.

The only way to get him talking, Dr Smollet says, is to swap his brain waves with Max's for half an hour. Would you do it for your friends? Max really, really doesn't want to (he's quite attached to his brain).

The story swaps between Nicky and Max telling it, so you get the ghosts' side and the living boy's side. Nicky is the sensible one, forever trying to rein in his sister. Max admits he's a total coward, and his big brother stuffs lettuce up his nose at dinner. There's plenty of gross-out stuff too, from a mouldy egg hidden under a pillow to a sandwich that ends very badly for that brother.

It's scary in a giggly way rather than a nightmare way. There are animal cries behind closed doors at the lab and a stranger lurking behind hedges, but the jokes keep coming. If your reader likes their spooky stories with a bit of yuck and lots of laughs, this is a good fit.

What to read next

Because this sits so far into the series, it's worth going back to the book where it all began. Who Let the Ghosts Out opens on the night Nicky and Tara walk home and can't remember where they've been.