Why I’m Afraid of Bees

R. L. Stine's Why I'm Afraid of Bees is a creepy, funny story for 8 year olds about a boy who swaps bodies with someone else for a week, and doesn't get the body he was promised.

What happens

Gary Lutz is twelve and his life is the pits. The kids at school call him Lutz the Klutz. He's always picked last. His nine-year-old sister can open jars he can't. And his next-door neighbour keeps bees, which is bad news, because Gary is scared of bees more than anything.

So when a message on his computer offers him a holiday from himself, he's interested. A company called Person-to-Person Vacations can move your mind into someone else's body for a week. They find him a match, a tall, sporty boy called Dirk Davis.

Something goes wrong with the switch. And you can probably guess from the title where Gary ends up...

It's proper edge-of-your-seat stuff, told by Gary himself, and nearly every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. It's also very funny. His bad luck is so relentless you can't help laughing, even while you feel for him. Right at the start he tells you he used to be afraid of bees. Finding out why is half the fun.

A word about the bullying before you hand it over. Three big boys beat Gary up twice in the first few chapters, leaving him with a bloody nose and a black eye. He hides it from his mum. The neighbour plays mean tricks on him, and even his family laugh at him. For a child who's having a hard time at school, some of it could land close to home.

If your reader likes to be scared and to laugh in the same breath, this is a great pick. The creepiest bits are close up and crawly (think hairy legs and a LOT of buzzing).

What to read next

If they're after another twelve-year-old with something strange on his doorstep, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp has Grady moving to the edge of a Florida swamp, where something howls every night.