Son of Slappy: 03/01/13

Son of Slappy by RL Stine is the second of the recently launched Goosebumps, Most Wanted Series. My son and his friends have discovered their school's ratty (meaning, well-read) copies of Goosebumps so I was curious to see how the new series compares to the older ones.

The first Goosebumps series started well after I was out of the target age range but I heard of them through a younger cousin and read a few of the early ones, including Night of the Living Dummy (Goosebumps 7), the first of the Slappy books.

Slappy is an evil ventriloquist's dummy. Honestly, except for "The Puppet Show" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 1, episode 9), all ventriloquist's dummies are evil. But Slappy is perhaps the worst of the worst.

Now for those who are complaining that Slappy was destroyed in a previous book; he's evil enough (and smart enough) to fake his own destruction. Now that he's been laying low in an old man's collection (quick — call for an intervention, this dude's a hoarder), Slappy has picked a Marty-Stu named Jackson who is so perfect no adult believes he's capable of doing any wrong. Little sister, though, with Slappy's help has her sights on his perfect reputation.

It was a fun read and very much in keeping with the spirit and formula of the earlier books.

Four stars