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"Reader beware, you choose the scare!"
―The series' slogan

Give Yourself Goosebumps is a horror fiction gamebook series in which the reader chooses the story. All of the books are credited to R.L. Stine, but many were ghostwritten. Revealed in October 1994,[1] the series ran from 1995 to 2000, starting with Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, and ending with All-Day Nightmare (which would be the last Goosebumps book until Goosebumps Graphix six years later). There are fifty books in the series, including the eight special editions. Only one book in this series has been reprinted: Please Don't Feed the Vampire!, which was made into a Classic Goosebumps book as a tie-in to the 2015 film.

Background[]

After the success of the original series, Scholastic used R.L. Stine's experience in writing gamebooks to make a spin-off series where there is more than one ending. The books are similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Each page will give the reader their options for which page(s) they can turn to next. The pages are not meant to be read in numerical order.

According to Scholastic, Stine's contract for this series did not stipulate he had to be the sole author (unlike Stine's contract for the original Goosebumps series). While all of the books are credited to Stine, many of the books were ghostwritten by uncredited authors. It's known that Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter was written by Kathryn Lance[2] (who wrote seven books for the series),[3] and All-Day Nightmare was written by Scott Westerfeld[4] (who wrote five books for the series).[5] USA Today once attributed Stine's sister-in-law Megan Stine as a ghostwriter for this series,[6] but this could be a mistake; since Megan Stine was a credited ghostwriter for Goosebumps Presents, it's possible someone confused the two spinoffs.

Stine stated that writing the series was easy for him, as it wasn't like writing a whole book. He would take a pad and number from one to 100 and then write a series of punchlines.[7]

Premises[]

There are over twenty endings per book, and the reader's choices influence the story path. Some choices are decided by chance (flipping coins, rolling dice, or other means). If the reader takes an obviously bad path, they may be instructed to go back and pick another option, or the story might end abruptly.

Storylines[]

Each book contains at least one major plotline. Books that feature two distinct plotlines are especially common. Some of the books have smaller plotlines, side-stories that only consist of a few endings. Some of these side-stories have no good endings (with Trapped in Bat Wing Hall featuring the first example of this).

Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel, It Came from the Internet!, and most of the Special Edition entries are examples of books with one storyline for the reader. The books Escape from the Carnival of Horrors and Return to the Carnival of Horrors are typical examples of dual-storylines, focusing on either rides or sideshow attractions. The final book in the Special Edition series, Weekend at Poison Lake, has four storylines, with the reader becoming a completely different character in each one.

In some books, the continuity between storylines is fairly good. Other times, it's ignored. A character who appears to be nice in one plotline might be a secret villain in another.

Endings[]

Deaths and bad endings are common in the Give Yourself Goosebumps series. Typically, there are only a few happy endings per book.

In many of the bad endings, the reader dies, but the death is typically implied and not stated directly. Often, at the end of each plot-line, the reader will be met with the "THE END". This phrase might be incorporated into a sentence. Other times, it says simply "END" or has a different phrase all together that makes sense within the ending (like saying "GAME OVER" if the ending involved virtual reality).

In many of the bad endings, the book will criticize the reader for their bad decision making or cowardice. In these instances, the book will usually demand that the reader turn to the "correct" page or suggest that they stop reading. Sometimes, the reader can miss out on the actual adventure entirely by making unadventurous choices.

Types of endings[]

Although endings differ between each book, the types of endings you can achieve are often similar. Some of the most common endings are as follows:

  • Death
  • Permanent transformation
  • Enslavement or loss of control
  • Becoming frozen or transforming into a stationary object (sometimes still aware of surroundings)
  • Dying and becoming a ghost or other undead being
  • Missing out on the adventure
  • Becoming trapped
  • Winding up in the wrong time and/or place
  • Discovering your true identity
  • Getting scolded by the book for picking an obviously bad or wimpy choice
  • Surviving the adventure, but with something wrong (like you've been transformed, for example)
  • Surviving the adventure, but not accomplishing anything important or having fun
  • Surviving the adventure and achieving your goal

The endings above are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor is this list definitive.

Books[]

Give Yourself Goosebumps
No. Book Publish date Pages
1 Escape from the Carnival of Horrors July 1995 135
2 Tick Tock, You're Dead! November 1995 135
3 Trapped in Bat Wing Hall December 1995 137
4 The Deadly Experiments of Dr. Eeek February 1996 130
5 Night in Werewolf Woods April 1996 133
6 Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter June 1996 135
7 Under the Magician's Spell July 1996 135
8 The Curse of the Creeping Coffin August 1996 132
9 The Knight in Screaming Armor September 1996 136
10 Diary of a Mad Mummy October 1996 136
11 Deep in the Jungle of Doom November 1996 136
12 Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum December 1996 137
13 Scream of the Evil Genie January 1997 137
14 The Creepy Creations of Professor Shock February 1997 135
15 Please Don't Feed the Vampire! March 1997 137
16 Secret Agent Grandma April 1997 131
17 Little Comic Shop of Horrors May 1997 137
18 Attack of the Beastly Babysitter June 1997 136
19 Escape from Camp Run-For-Your-Life July 1997 137
20 Toy Terror: Batteries Included August 1997 137
21 The Twisted Tale of Tiki Island September 1997 137
22 Return to the Carnival of Horrors October 1997 137
23 Zapped in Space November 1997 137
24 Lost in Stinkeye Swamp December 1997 134
25 Shop Till You Drop...Dead! January 1998 133
26 Alone in Snakebite Canyon March 1998 137
27 Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel April 1998 140
28 Night of a Thousand Claws June 1998 137
29 Invaders from the Big Screen July 1998 137
30 You're Plant Food! September 1998 136
31 The Werewolf of Twisted Tree Lodge November 1998 137
32 It's Only a Nightmare! December 1998 137
33 It Came from the Internet February 1999 135
34 Elevator to Nowhere March 1999 136
35 Hocus-Pocus Horror April 1999 137
36 Ship of Ghouls May 1999 137
37 Escape from Horror House July 1999 135
38 Into the Twister of Terror August 1999 133
39 Scary Birthday to You! September 1999 140
40 Zombie School November 1999 135
41 Danger Time January 2000 135
42 All-Day Nightmare February 2000 137
Give Yourself Goosebumps: Special Edition
1 Into the Jaws of Doom February 1998 135
2 Return to Terror Tower May 1998 136
3 Trapped in the Circus of Fear August 1998 131
4 One Night in Payne House October 1998 135
5 The Curse of the Cave Creatures January 1999 136
6 Revenge of the Body Squeezers June 1999 134
7 Trick or...Trapped! October 1999 135
8 Weekend at Poison Lake December 1999 135

For international releases, please click on one of the following:

United Kingdom

Hebrew

Early titles and canceled book[]

Main article: List of scrapped and pre-release material
GYGB-043

The artwork for the unreleased book.

Many of the later books were revealed online with working titles, such as Ship of Ghouls, which was listed as Deadly Cruse on several websites before its release.

In 2017, artwork by Craig White of what would've been the forty-third book in the series was posted online.[8] The plot details and title are unknown, but the artwork depicting three aggressive emperor penguins suggest that it would have been themed around Antarctica. The book went unpublished due to R.L. Stine's fallout with Scholastic early in the year 2000.

Connection to other Goosebumps series[]

There are two books in this series that are sequels to other Goosebumps books. These include Return to Terror Tower, which is a sequel to A Night in Terror Tower from the original series, and Revenge of the Body Squeezers, which is a sequel to Invasion of the Body Squeezers: Part 1 and Part 2 from Goosebumps Series 2000.

Characters from other Goosebumps books are occasionally mentioned and appear in cameos, such as Slappy the Dummy and Monster Blood, who appear in Escape from the Carnival of Horrors. Some books also feature quizzes about other Goosebumps books.

Covers[]

Tim Jacobus, the illustrator for the original series and most Goosebumps material during the 1990s, illustrated Escape from the Carnival of Horrors; his signature is covered up on the front by Choose from Over 20 Different Scary Endings!, but it is visible on the back. Scholastic didn't want to overwork Jacobus[9], so Mark Nagata took over from book two, Tick Tock, You're Dead!, to twenty-four, Lost in Stinkeye Swamp. The next book, Shop Till You Drop...Dead!, was also intended to be illustrated by Nagata, but he was replaced by Craig White as the series artist. White illustrated the rest of the series all the way until book forty-two, All-Day Nightmare and all eight special editions. He created the covers using computer animation software, sometimes incorporating 3D elements and digital textures.

The first twenty-two books used a template similar to the original series, but with a metallic-holographic prism effect involving a single abstract design repeated on the cover that would change shape or form when it was exposed to different areas of light. The slime and holographic-look were ditched in favor of a more sci-fi aesthetic starting with book twenty-three, Zapped in Space.

List of characters[]

Villains/Enemies/Antagonists[]

References in other Goosebumps media[]

References[]

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