Book of the Week: Goosebumps 25th Anniversary Collection by R. L. Stine

Goosebumps is close to my heart. Funny how you can read a book that you love so much, even reading another copy with a different cover just doesn't seem like an option. Don't get me wrong, the redesigns are cute, and it sort of revives the series in a way for a younger generation. Yet I love the old art here. It's very 90s, and very much a slice of my childhood.

I've always love reading, but when I was 6, learning to actively put a sentence together was hard. I'll save you the whole story of how it suddenly 'clicked' one day, and I could read just about anything. Suffice it to say, the first year I could go to that Scholastics book fair with money in hand and the knowledge that I could read whatever I bought without any help was magical. So I got a VHS of The Haunted Mask (which I still have), and a goosebumps book with a pumpkin book light. I'm not going to lie, the book light was what sold it. I think I bought Welcome to Dead House. It was '97, and Goosebumps was the series that all the kids were reading. The show had just launched, too, and I remember rushing home every day to watch it. There's not usually a huge scare in the Goosebumps books. Most of them have ambiguously an happy ending (yes, the day is saved...but you're a monster, or that sponge is going to wreak havoc when it gets wet again, or your dad might be one of the hundreds of plants in the front yard.) The next dark step up from Goosebumps was Ghosts of Fear Street, and then Fear Street when you were really ready for something 'darker and more mature'. Something for the teenagers.

My point is that I got this collection as a gift, it's amazing, and I'm pretty sure it could all be easily read in the course of a day by anyone of any age, and still feel just as magical as it did to me that day at the book fair when I bought my first Goosebumps.

Odd Monsters

Bored with the bogeyman? Not finding the clown thing too funny anymore? Are vampires in your nightmares just sucking you dry? Well, not to worry, there's plenty of 'wonderful' creatures out there to ensure that your psyche stays freshly traumatized for years to come. Keeping the Japanese one to just one, because their mythology is so broad with yokai and spirits, that you can't possibly cover them all in one go.

Katawaguruma/Katawa Guruma

Origin: Japanese

The female counterpart to the Wa nyūdō, this creature appears in the shape of a woman (usually naked) burning in eternal torment with the lower portions, or attached to, an ox cart wheel. The causes bad luck, ill fortune, and misery to those who encounter her, what's more...the bad luck doesn't just stop at one person, it can spread through the entire community associated with anyone who has met her. She also harvests the souls of the 'impure', the cruel, the sinful, etcetera, etcetera.

Likhoradka/Tryasavitsa

Origin: Slavic

Embodying a tall woman with black, messy hair, Likhoradka will spread  horrible calamities and plague wherever she goes, and to whomever she encounters. She can also possess anyone she chooses.

Black Annis/Agnes

Origin: British

Save your jokes, this lady is not someone you want to mess with. Absolutely hideous creature, a wizened crone with gnarly black claws, sharp teeth, one eye, and mottled blue skin. Some say her claws are made of iron, some say they're just...particularly strong, I suppose. Residing around Leicestershire, Agnes spends most of her free time tearing travelers to pieces, redecorating her cave with the flayed skin of small children, and generally just being a terrible neighbor. Meg Mucklebones, anyone?

Kanontsistonties

Origin: Iriquois

Say what you will about Native American mythology, it seems to me that they really take the cake for the creepiest monsters out there. As much as I adore the Windigo, I felt like maybe delving into something a little less popular. Varying in size from miniscule to massive, the Kanontsistonties are essentially flying skulls with bat wings and a desperate craving for...you guessed it...human flesh. They are the product of two possibilities, victims of murder by beheading, or...they used to be cannibals in life, and decided they just couldn't kick the habit in death either. They can't stop, as they have no stomachs, so they're pretty much doomed to eternal hunger.

Cheval Mallet

Origin: French

Horses. You can't trust them. I had a horse step on my foot once. I didn't like it. So when I learned of the Cheval Mallet, it came as no surprise that it turned out to be an evil horse. Well, that and the fact that I took French in high school, so the connection wasn't too hard to make. Essentially, it appears at night as a beautiful horse, tricks you into riding it...and that's it, for the rest of your life (and onwards), you're trapped for eternity riding a beautiful horse. A beautiful evil horse. Or it drowns you. They like doing that, too.

Spring-Heeled Jack

Ah, England. The land of Shakespeare, the land of fish and chips, and the land of Spring-Heeled Jack…who I’m sure you’ve heard of. You know the guy. Black cloak, glowing red eyes, point ears, claws like iron, breathed fire?

Spring-Heeled Jack is one of those urban legends I don’t quite understand. Kind of like the Chupacrabra. I don’t get the Chupacabra. I don’t get Big Foot either, come to think of it.

He wasn’t a super-villain in some comic book, believe it or not. He was a supposedly real figure who terrorized small towns throughout the early 19^th century, until he made his debut in London. That was when the stories really began to pick up. It became an almost weekly event for some sort of mention of him in one newspaper or another.

It’s believed that Spring-Heeled Jack could jump great heights, leaping in bounds over buildings with ease. Some witnesses described him as a cloaked man with springs in his boots. I suppose the idea was so convincing, Germany tried to implement the idea in WWII on their paratroopers. Unfortunately for them, the only results were badly broken ankles.

Spring-Heeled Jack’s favorite past-times were tearing women’s clothing, and slapping men on the face. Sometimes he’d even blind the occasional victim with his fire breath. He gave an original meaning to the term ‘Halitosis’, in that regard.

His most infamous sighting was in 1904, when he was spotted by over 100 witnesses in Liverpool. This was also the final time he would be seen in England for 70 years. Kind of sad when you think about it, as if everyone banded together to give their kinky bogey man a good send-off before retiring.

It's widely believed Spring-Heeled Jack was actually a young nobleman, the Marquess of Waterford, who didn't really get on well with police or women. He may very well have been the first Spring-Heeled Jack, having taken a bet with several friends. I suppose the bet was something along the lines of 'run about the city making an ass of yourself with slinkies in your shoes', or something along those lines. Regardless, sightings continued after the Marquess had married, and even after he died in 1859.

He would be spotted several more times in the 1970s and 80s, but the story had lost most of it’s punch. Or slap. Spring-Heeled Jack was a good example of an era monster, defined by the culture he originated from.