Rotten School 14 – Night of the Creepy Things

R. L. Stine's Night of the Creepy Things is a Halloween romp for 7 year olds, set in a school where everyone is suddenly trying to scare everyone else.

What happens

It all starts on Welcome Back Day at the Rotten School. This year's visiting old boy is B. A. Gool, the horror film director the whole school worships. (His films include Bugs on My Face and I'll Eat Your Face for Breakfast, which tells you the sort of humour you're in for.)

Gool sets a challenge. Every pupil can make their own horror video, and on Halloween night he'll come back and judge them. The winner gets a small part in his next film.

Bernie Bridges is certain that winner will be him. He's our narrator, and he's never short of a plan that can't fail. The trouble is finding a film idea his friends don't ruin first. Beast eats the whole bucket of toadstools meant to star in Attack of the Toadstool People. Joe Sweety, the toughest boy in school, wakes up halfway through being wrapped as a mummy. And Feenman forgets to bring the camcorder.

Everyone else is at it too. Rich kid Sherman Oaks has a camera that also makes sandwiches. Billy the Brain's giant ant film loses all its ants. And Jennifer Ecch is filming a vampire movie called Bite Night, starring Bernie whether he likes it or not.

Is it actually scary? Not in the first half, anyway. The horror is mostly bandages, drool and dares, with Bernie telling you how brilliant he is while it all falls apart. Each disaster is about a chapter long, so it's easy to dip in and out of at bedtime.

There's plenty of grossness to giggle at. Feenman sneezes about a gallon of snot, Beast pulls bugs out of his hair and offers them round, and Jennifer's "rehearsals" leave Bernie with bandages on his neck. If your reader likes a bit of pretend spookiness around Halloween, this fits nicely. A few words are American (fourth graders, dorm, camcorder), but they won't get in the way.

It's number fourteen in the series, but Bernie explains the school and his friends as he goes. So it doesn't matter if your reader hasn't met him before.

What to read next

If they want more of Bernie's luck, try Calling All Birdbrains. This time he's convinced his rude parrot Lippy is a lucky charm, which goes about as well as you'd expect.