The Nightmare Room 10 – Full Moon Halloween

R. L. Stine's Full Moon Halloween is a creepy Nightmare Room story for 11 year olds about the worst party invitation anyone has ever opened.

What happens

Tristan and his friends Rosa, Ray and Bella are all twelve. Their big question this Halloween is whether they're too old to go trick-or-treating.

Then a black envelope turns up in the post. It explodes with a pop and a puff of black smoke when Tristan opens it. Inside is an invitation to a Halloween party at the house of Mr Moon, their strange new science teacher.

Nobody else at school seems to have been asked. Mr Moon's silent son Michael keeps appearing in doorways and whispering "Be careful." And the town is jumpy about a run of animal attacks on the news, which some people are blaming on werewolves.

You know early on that something is badly wrong, because the book lets you peek into the Moons' house before the kids arrive. They're testing steel bars that slam down over every window. That's the fun of it. Your reader knows more than Tristan does and spends the whole party wanting to shout at him.

The party itself is a very nasty surprise. There's a blindfold game where you guess what's in a bowl (it's real animal guts). Then the doors lock. Mr Moon announces that one of the four friends is a werewolf, and nobody is going home until the full moon rises at midnight.

The chapters are short and nearly every one ends on a jolt. Ray keeps things from getting too heavy. He calls himself Stone Cold Ray, howls at every opportunity and answers everything with a wrestling catchphrase.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The kids are properly trapped by grown-ups who won't let them leave, and Mr Moon's temper is frightening. There's talk of cats found torn apart, and the friends are made to wear stinking wolf skins crawling with bugs.

If your reader loves being creeped out, they'll probably race through it. If they're a worrier about being shut in somewhere, maybe keep it away from bedtime!

What to read next

Each Nightmare Room book has its own cast, so there's no need to read them in order. If they're hooked, go back to the very first one, Don't Forget Me! A girl pretends to hypnotise her annoying little brother, and it stops being a joke.