#TBT READING: Return to Fear Street

RL Stine ranks second on the list of the world's best-selling children's authors, behind JK Rowling. (Perhaps an initials.) He is certainly one of the most prolific writers, especially in his children's and young adult horror novels.

Sting began his career as a comedy writer - if you can believe it - under the pseudonym Jovel Bob Sting. Remember the Nickelodeon show Eureka Castle ? He is co-creator and lead writer. So being called Stephen King for kids was a big change. Beginning with 1992's Welcome to the House of the Dead , his Goosebumps series consists of 62 books and has spawned many other series, totaling hundreds of novels.

Stine is always careful not to get too graphic in his Goosebumps stories. Yes, young girls have masks plastered on their faces and there's always something creepy lurking in the basement, but he makes sure no one dies in his story. Even if there are ghosts, they are always dead before the story begins.

That's not the case with Fear Street .

Stine's Fear Street series takes place in the fictional horror town of Shadyside. Like Goosebumps, there have been countless spin-offs, but the original series, which totaled 52 books, began in 1989 with the eerily simple title , New Girl .

What's so great about Fear Street?

Many Fear Street readers got their start with Goosebumps. But Fear Street has the same horrors, minus the boys, kissing, and "grown-up" teenagers. As a preteen, older teens were the coolest.

Once we got a taste of Fear Street, we left the goosebumps behind.

There are a lot of ghost stories in this series, but I always like the more "realistic" (relatively speaking) ones best - like "Double Date," in which one guy has to figure out which twin he's secretly dating at the same time One was cold-blooded murder.

Look what a hunk he is. "Two make company, but three could be murder."

There are also some books with beautiful covers that I read from the library because I was too embarrassed to go to the bookstore to buy them in front of my mother.

"Fear Street" was written for kids who went to sleepovers, huddled in sleeping bags in the dark and watched "Pet Sematary," "Friday the 13th " and "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

While they may be a bit artificial now, as kids they were total hard work. (Incidentally, his Goosebumps book, The Abyss, came to me around the same time as Jaws , and its cover still haunts me to this day.)

Stine knows how to get inside a child's brain and find out the scariest things. Just like you might jump from your bedroom door onto your bed so that nothing below can reach out and grab you. Or how you can’t sleep with your closet door open. In an interview with Reading Rockets , Steyn explained how he came up with his story:

I'm afraid of many things...I have one fear. I have to park my bike in the garage after dark, and I always think something is lurking in the garage. I used to throw my bike in so I didn't have to go in. I think it's a painful way to spend your childhood...but in a way, it's also a blessing. It helped me later because now, when I write these scary books for kids, I can recall that feeling of panic. I can remember that feeling, and then I can bring that feeling to my book.

Why can we still enjoy Fear Street?

Sometimes, especially for those who are still studying or have jobs that require a lot of academic or technical reading, the best feeling in the world is to curl up and just read for pleasure. The Fear Street series will help with this, especially if you plan on hunkering down in the dark with a flashlight. Now is also a good time to revisit, because the Fear Street books are back.

Hey, what’s wrong with being pretentious? At approximately 160 pages each, the Fear Street books are like small bites of candy that can be enjoyed in a few spare hours. Do yourself a favor and have a cup of hot cider at your Halloween party in late October.

Next time you go on vacation to the beach, throw the Sunburn in your bag to use during those hours of flight. I promise, this is more interesting than the celebrity gossip magazines you get at the airport.

RL Stine is passionate about enjoying and having fun reading. In an age where everyone talks about being embarrassed by what they read and making judgments based on other literary merits, we can all learn something from Sting's approach:

"A lot of adults think every children's book has to teach them something... My theory is that a children's book... can be just for fun."

Also, now I want to know who the author of all the slogans is because he or she is a genius.

Finally, as a dog lover, I really appreciate Steyn's perspective on cats, which he mentioned in an interview with Colby Marshall:

I've always been a dog person. Owned most of my life. You can tell I don't like cats - because I've written a lot of books about evil cats. It's much harder to imagine an evil dog.

*cough*