Hello, Spongey here.
The last time we visited the kid friendly side of Shadyside, we got a mixed bag of Halloween treats. I wanted to make up for that with one I’ve had on my list since I got back into these reviews. With that, our latest Ghosts of Fear Street adventure takes us to around the same time. Published in 1997, this was #23 so it was fairly deep in. I had been interested in it for a while but never could read it until around 2019.
I recall it being in the least interesting so I decided to pick it out for review instead of hitting the randomizer. The ghostwriter here is Nina Kiri Hoffman, who we’ve hit before with I Was a 6th Grade Zombie and Body Switchers from Outer Space. This will the last we see of her, sadly. While Switchers was standard, Zombies was fairly fresh so let’s hope this is too, even if it isn’t Sci-Fi. Actually, recently I read a story from her in Bruce Coville’s Book of Aliens and I liked it well enough.
She’s one of the more legit authors to work on this. Does she end on a high note for us? Let’s see.
This, is Why I’m Not Afraid of Ghosts
This cover is goofy. On top of the shocked kid face, we have the most cartoon-y ghost ever. Not a bad idea for a cover, but a bit too silly. That kid looks pretty afraid too, so it’s all a lie. Memorable at least, but not the greatest piece of art for Broeck.
(Between this title and the plot of Body Switchers, we know what Nina’s favorite Goosebumps book is lol).
The book begins with a kid named Oliver Bowden and his new friend Shawn Wood as they take a tour through Oliver’s new house. He’s new to Shadyside, with Shawn going to a private school, which is why he doesn’t see him at school. Oliver moves a lot due to his dad’s job working for the government.
Already a crappy parent. Shawn warns him there are rumors of ghosts around town, like one named Pete that controls your body. Whoa, quick with the callbacks. Oliver doesn’t believe in any of that stuff, even as Shawn says this very house could be haunted.
We get a scare with a sheet that seems to be floating but is actually the dog…but when they take off the sheet, the dog isn’t there. Too spooky for me, let’s leave. Oliver dismisses it being a ghost as just raising a sheet would be lazy. Hope that ghost is cold cuz it just got burned, that will fix the cold.
They leave…and then we meet our protagonists, two ghost kids named Robbie and Dora. They’ve been dead and haunting this place for 100 years, but still look like normal kids. Robbie wore a sailor suit when he died. Wasn’t that thing in Everlost too? Oh there’s a throwback for ya, let’s see who gets that reference. But yes, this is our third person: Two ghosts.
Robbie is normal while Dora is more of a brat. We see them do some ghost tricks, like melting your face Dead House style which is pretty rad. They like scaring people away, but that’s more of a Dora thing. A part of Robbie to have a real friend and kinda likes Oliver but Dora won’t have it. And right away, this is a pretty unique book.
We’re focusing on basically the ghosts in a ghost story. That’s so different and refreshing from all the same-y stuff we tend to get. We’ll have to see where it goes. They decide on a wager: The first to scare Oliver for good, wins. And they win…bragging rights? A new car? Either way, that’s our setup. Oliver’s sister Nell comes up, and only seems to see them so we can be told that some living people have the 6th sens-I mean The Sight, which lets them see ghosts.
She doesn’t seem to have it so Robbie goes to Oliver’s room to scare him. We get some amusing observations Robbie makes on current day, like how comic books show that “funny papers” have changed. Also, living people are called Lifers. I thought you should know this. Before he can do anything, Spooky the dog comes in and oh yeah dogs sense ghosts, so that’s an issue.
It’s actually after the cat but still. Things going through ghosts makes their energy get all weird, which happens when Dora goes through him as a joke. Yeah maybe call Beetlejuice if you want to scare this kid. They go up to practice their moaning then come down to watch Oliver watch a movie.
Robbie is into the movie but Dora acts like Film Twitter and just whines about it. That night, Robbie tries to scare Oliver in his sleep with tons of ghost moans. It seems to work, waking up. But..it turns out he assumes it’s Nell moaning from a dream she had. Yes, that’s what normal kids sound like. Sure.
Dora gets a kick out of that failure and wants to try her plan, which will scare the afterlife out of you. Cute. Get ready, the plot is mainly this, think of it as a fun farce.
Later, Oliver is walking home with a kid named Mike who swears he had a ghost experience in his house which is also a local museum. Okay, this kid is from Fright Knight which I haven’t even read yet. Neat.
He gets to his yard where Shawn claims to see someone in an upper window. Oh that’s just Ray, don’t mind him. Oliver writes that off of course and we pivot to find that it was Dora. She was watching out for Oliver while cooking up a plan but showed herself to Shawn instead. That aside, we move on to Oliver playing a 90s CD-ROM game called Wild World Off Road Super Rally.
Great name. Dora’s scare is to appear in the game because ghosts can do that. She makes her face melt, and talks to Oliver once her skull is there. Eh every creepypasta is like this, try harder.
Oliver runs to his dad…to say the game is totally broken! Okay I can somewhat buy thinking it’s part of the game. But glitches don’t exactly do that. Robbie has a good laugh over her failure. I won’t quote much but this aftermath scene is making me like their dynamic more. Also, Ghosts can’t spit. They can’t do it and now this? Ghosts suck.
Robbie promises he will have a good scare…he just doesn’t know what it is. That night while Oliver is asleep, Robbie makes a bunch of generic ghost noises to warm up. Then he moves on to tons of monster noises and such.
He goes really hard but soon notices that Oliver is still, not even seeming to be breathing. Turns out he’s fine, just that deep of a sleeper. Sure this kid isn’t supernatural?
Dora saw that and gets to gloat again. However, she is getting tired of failing and wants a new tactic. Thus, they will try to scare him at school, leaving their house for the first time. Should give us variety at least.
The next morning, the ghost kids follow him to school as Dora will lead this scare. During English class, Dora misses with his stuff a bunch, like launching his pencils to the cowling. Oliver doesn’t notice or react to it all, as he’s just weird at this point. The other kids are distracted by all this, including when Dora goes as far as to spin him a lot.
…But all it does is make him sneeze. Best fakeout ever. The teacher gets angry but he promises to never spin again. I feel like he has to know something weird is going on but is just handling it better than any kid in these would.
Dora is so defeated that he doesn’t gloat over this although they do still bickering a bit. In Science class, Oliver proves to be popular cuz kids love spinning.
The teacher Mr. Gosling (no relation to Ryan I assume) launches into Bunsen Burner stuff. Robbie jumps into the flames that come put and makes a big epic flame face.
…And Oliver doesn’t see the face. It’s not quite explained why. It’s implied his energy is low so he didn’t appear to people, I guess? Either way, he and Dora are pretty pooped and deflated. I’m starting to feel bad for both, not just the good one. After school, Oliver walks home with Shawn who is still going on about ghosts. He has something important to tell him but Nell pulls him away. Suspicious…
Later at home, Oliver and Shawn hang out. During this session, the table floats up, as does Oliver. There is more spinning and when he’s dropped, the coffee table is falling towards him. Switching back to the ghost POV, we see that Oliver survives but Shawn isn’t viewable which means…crushed.
Geez, that’s dark. I already know he isn’t dead cuz duh but still. Oliver is alive and he sees a wisp of white rise. This whisp turns into Shawn because Shawn is a ghost. Dun dun dun.
I’ll jump ahead and say he was already a ghost, no murder just happened. Shawn quickly clarifies that, whew. That means he’s been able to see the ghost kids this whole time. This was fairly obvious, with how he doesn’t go to his school among other hints, some of which I skipped. Eh, it’s better than coming out of nowhere, I will allow it.
At least Oliver believes in ghosts now. Shawn says his death is a long story, which is codeword for we’re too cowardly to reveal it. He pivots to telling them about Robbie and Dora, these “evil” kids haunting them. They go upstairs so Oliver can heal his bonked head. Robbie is super mad at this point and says tonight they’re gonna scare Oliver to death.
And he’s shocked Shawn sees them as evil. They will use all their tricks at once, going all at. Since I think they have the power to show themselves directly to living people, I feel like just appearing and doing ghost stuff could do it. Granted, he wasn’t distrustful of Shawn after that reveal so carry on.
Night falls and they start their big plan, combining all their energy. As it starts up though, Olive looks in the mirror…and he has no reflection. Huh? Oliver says Shawn didn’t need to worry about any other ghosts. Because you see, he’s a vampire and they have The Sight!
He could see them this whole time, and has been playing with them and making them waste their energy. That’s why some instances of him not being scared felt a bit forced. That’s actually clever. He says he’ll drink up the rest of their energy as vampires can do that I guess? The ghost kids respond by getting the hell out of there.
That just leaves poor Shawn. Dad comes in and asks if he’s winning son. Actually, we find out that dad was in on this the whole time. See, Mr. Bowen works for the Federal Anti-Sprit Task Force. Ya know, the FASTF. It’s his job to de-haunt houses, get the ghosts out of them. The best method is to scare them more than they scare you, which he just did.
That’s the “government job” they were hinting at. Dad doesn’t know about Shawn being a ghost and Oliver will keep it that way. It may go against their thing to befriend ghosts but Shawn is cool. There’s a whole story that just unlocked. Dad leaves and Oliver confirms he isn’t a vampire. He doesn’t have the sight ever, he just…guesses where they were. That’s a bit less clever but at least we have them knowing of ghosts.
Oh and the mirror thing was a trick using special goo, Nina thinks of everything. He isn’t sure that trick would work for logical “no blood” reasons.
“Besides, everyone knows there’s no such thing as vampires!”
This joke would land better if this was before How to be a Vampire. The End. Solid ending there, can’t complain too much for once. Well, mostly. We can wrap up now, oddly not much to add here.
Final Thoughts:
This book was pretty solid. The main word I would use to describe it is “Clever”. This is a clever take on a ghost story. Nina clearly knew how a lot of these go and wanted to offer a refreshing story. Let’s be honest, these kids horror books can use a lot of the same tropes and while there’s a comfort food aspect to that, I very much appreciate it when they do something somewhat new.
Here we focus on the ghosts themselves. It’s all played as farce, which allows for some good humor. The main shtick could have gotten old, as we soon know these tricks will fail to scare Oliver. But for one, it’s only 108 pages so it goes by quickly and doesn’t waste them. And second, they have enough variety with parts like the school scene to keep it moving.
It is a limiting setup but it only threatens to become an issue. Robbie and Dora have good chemistry, and are made enjoyable by their back and forth. They are weirdly likable and you almost want to see them win. Oliver works as this unbothered kid and I love that the twist easily explains why he was like that. The forced nature of it fits with the farcical vibe but I like how they explained it.
The twists we get add to the clever way they flip this ghost story on its own. There’s a few good, somewhat scary moments that are played in a casual way which is amusing. It’s more comedy than horror but it’s good they have that there. Shawn I’m not totally sure on, as he doesn’t add that much even with the reveal he gets.
I think it’s a shame Robbie and Dora just run out at the end. Robbie has moments of wanting to be normal and not scare any lifer off, yet they just both get treated like villains in the end. We don’t find out how they died or anything like that either. It would be cliche to give them a redemption arc of sorts but maybe you can play with it. Are You Afraid of the Dark alone did tons of ghost redemption stories.
So for a quick rewrite, maybe Oliver uncovers some of their backstory and when they reveal themselves, he tries to appeal to them and make turn good or something like that. They reject that as they just don’t have humanity anymore or whatever. There, you can do more subversion with that. It works as it is, it’s more of me thinking of something else they could have done rather than what we get being that inferior.
It is missing a little something here and there, I would touch up a few bits here and there. But that’s about it. I thought it would get worse on a re-read, knowing the format of it but it held up well. It’s a clever read that is pretty fun. Not every one of these can be like this but I do wish more were.
This is an easy one to recommend. The comedic nature may not be to everyone’s taste but that’s about it, most will appreciate the effort. No one will certainly see it as the worst thing ever at least. Give it a shot for something fun and at least kinda different.
Rating: Good
It’s one I wish I could put higher but there’s some mild things here and there pushing it back. Either way, Nina has to be my favorite ghostwriter for the series. Body Switchers was more standard but these other two make up for it. Solid stuff.
Next time, we head back to Stine proper as he tries for more of an adult angle to horror comics.
See ya.
A Taste of Spongey 