Drew and Walker are still furious about a dumb Halloween prank neighbors Tabby and Lee played on them two years ago. This year, they enlist siblings Shane and Shana to help them get even. The prank they come up with is far more elaborate than Drew thought it would be.
Seriously dumb until the revenge prank is set in motion. ( )

#48 "Put one head in front of the other..."
Nothing is better than Halloween to Drew. But constantly plagued by Lee and Tabby and they're terrible practical jokes, Drew decided she's going to get back at them this year. She's got a really great plan with a couple of her friends. And these friends are out of this world! ( )

Fun book. Read it to my son who had just turned five. He was scared by the pumpkinhead element, which I played down a bit, but otherwise, he enjoyed it, specially as he loves Halloween. Not Stein’s best book, but fitting. Personally, I wished for a stronger ending, but for the audience this was written for, it worked. ( )

[b: Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns|1801072|Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns (Goosebumps, #48)|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1359209350s/1801072.jpg|2161988] was a bit too much of a children's book for me to find entertaining. In [a: R.L. Stine|13730|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1194380070p2/13730.jpg]'s words, it was "babyish." The plot was very superficial, the actions frankly ridiculous, scares nonexistent, and twist nonsensical. It was a mess of a book, an I'm surprised that there are people out there who really got into it. I mean... the Creature of this book is essentially this:



A group of kids obsessed with Halloween have, for the past two years, been shown up by two other kids. Once this included a rather cruel joke of a fake breaking and entering, the second time it was simply those two kids not showing up to the Revenge Party that had been planned. This year, however, will be different. This year, they WILL scare those other kids. Apparently with pumpkin headed monsters. Or something. TRICK OR TREAT FOREVER.

Can you see my eyes rolling from there? Jack O' Lanterns just aren't that frightening. Even the concept of pumpkin headed monsters just doesn't do it for me. I don't know if it's really just stupid or if I was just too old for it, but for me, this book fell flat from start to finish. ( )

## Put one head in front of the other...

Halloween provided this series with some of its best stories, and Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns repeated the mark of quality. Its hero, Drew Brockman, is also one of R.L. Stine's funniest and most relatable and real narrators in the entire series.

[N.B. This review includes images, and was formatted for my site, dendrobibliography -- located here.]

Neighborhood brats Tabby and Lee count bullying our heroes (and, well, everyone) among their favorite pastimes, and, worst of it is, they cruelly pranked all the neighborhood kids on Halloween night a couple years earlier. Drew, Walter, and the twins Shana & Shane have been fostering Halloween revenge plans ever since -- no one gets away with ruining the greatest of all holidays! Grrrrrr!

Drew growls a lot, too. She's tiny in stature, with elfin features and elfin nicknames to accompany her looks. She and her friends are tough and verbal about it -- maybe they even overcompensate a bit. But they're fun, likable -- spastic -- heroes.

Two ghoulish figures with flame-lit jack-o'-lanterns for heads sneak up on Drew, Walter, and the two brats for a night of trick-or-treating. We're to assume they're the twins, but something isn't quite right with these two. The creepy pumpkin-heads are cruel, and things quickly escalate away from their revenge plans as the group is pushed into the forest. To top it off, these 'friends' just sound wrong, with deep, rasping, cruel voices. Wasn't there something about people disappearing from town recently, too?

It's a tremendously fun Halloween yarn. The sense of creeping mystery -- whether we're being pranked, or led by monsters or what -- is upheld to Stine's trademark twist ending. That, coupled with the quirky, original characters telling this story make Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns among the best Goosebumps books of the entire series.

R.L. Stine's Goosebumps (1992–1997):
#47 Legend of the Lost Legend | #49 Vampire Breath ( )