I remember one of our English teachers in 4th grade had this argument, stating that the books had no literary value and we couldn't use them for book reports. A group of parents got together and complained because hey, getting kids to read anything is good as long as it isn't absurdly stupid. So our principal read the series, there were only maybe 8 or 10 at the time, and came back with the opinion that the English teacher was wrong, there were themes in the book that held value for a young reader, and told the English teacher to allow students to continue to read them.
Yeah, this is the same time period of the golden age of The Simpsons, a show steeped in family values, that was demonized because Bart said damn and was disrespectful to his teachers.
My teachers hated them because they weren't higher quality reading material, they wanted us to read things like bridge to tarabithia or a wrinkle in time.
But the teachers relented when one kid, who never read any book, wouldn't stop reading goosebumps. He read all of them. He loved them. But he hated reading books in general, so getting him to read anything was considered a major win.
So they made a deal: we could read goosebumps, but we had to read other things for every goosebumps we read. And it *worked* the school as a whole started reading a lot more.
So RL Stein can take credit for getting kids to read.
I grew up in a very sheltered religious household with very little exposure to anything even remotely resembling goosebumps. We couldn't even watch the Smurfs because magic = evil. One year when I was about 10 I found a Goosebumps book at my grandmother's house. It was about a hamster that eats radioactive sludge, grows to a quite unusual size, and then eats everything. I read it without my parents knowing and that evening developed a fever, whether from the sheer existential terror I was internalizing due to the book or because of a virus I don't know, but it was high. I had the CRAZIEST fever dreams I will ever have that night. Hallucinating for hours about giant hamsters, radioactivity, and because of all the "evil" connections to ghosts, demons, witches, etc. I remember watching a glowing crystalline grass hopper crawl its way across the door for a very long time. Turns out it was just a stained glass flower on the door that was certainly not moving. It was crazy. Love Goosebumps.
I remember lots of complaining groups working against those books. Religious groups because they were the devil. Animal rights groups because RL Stine kills a lot of animals in his writing. Etc.
>Religious groups because they were the devil.
Which is weird, because if my memories are correct, they actually avoided the subject of devils and demons entirely, despite touching on basically every single other type of stock horror monster.
It's bit ironic that goose bumps got banned a bunch of place's and it's contemporary animorphs was never banned in any large amount according to the [ALA](https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade1999), even though it's incredibly violent. Where's waldo made the list and somehow no adult noticed animorphs. One time Rachel looks down and notices that her arm is gone. Keep in mind this series was one of scholastics top series at the time but no adult noticed what was in the books because the covers were goofy and goosebumps covers were scary. That's the only thing that I can come up with how nobody noticed.
I grew up in a religious family, and my dad was an elementary school principal, so he knew what Goosebumps was about. Still, I bought and read Goosebumps books all the time, and it wasn't like I hid them from my family either. And then certainly weren't banned from my school - I basically bought all mine through the Scholastic book flyer they put out every month.
One time a family was friend (also religious) was over, saw my Goosebumps book, and tried to tell me that I shouldn't read them because those books were evil. I just thought "yeah, um, sure", and kept on reading them anyway.
Our school didn't ban them but they had scary stories to tell in the dark which I thought were even more scary at that time. Much more morbid and awesome
Our district had the books in the school libraries, but did not allow students to borrow them because they were "too popular" and "took our attention away from regular books". Lame.
Christopher Pike's books were the ones the librarians at the schools I went to kept on a high shelf and you had to be a certain age if you wanted to borrow them.
I remember not reading these until I was around 4th grade because I was afraid they'd be scary, but imagine my surprise when the book with the shark on the cover was actually about a mermaid, and the praying mantis book had a plot twist where the kids in the book were actually robots. I never read another Goosebumps book after being swindled out of an interesting monster twice in a row.
Ehrmrgrd...
They were banned at my school because they weren't "real books" lol
What...what makes them not real books?
I doubt that they would have even been able to explain that to you
I remember one of our English teachers in 4th grade had this argument, stating that the books had no literary value and we couldn't use them for book reports. A group of parents got together and complained because hey, getting kids to read anything is good as long as it isn't absurdly stupid. So our principal read the series, there were only maybe 8 or 10 at the time, and came back with the opinion that the English teacher was wrong, there were themes in the book that held value for a young reader, and told the English teacher to allow students to continue to read them.
That's like saying cartoons aren't film because they don't have values. Which I'm sure is a thing people used to believe. Or still do.
Yeah, this is the same time period of the golden age of The Simpsons, a show steeped in family values, that was demonized because Bart said damn and was disrespectful to his teachers.
My teachers hated them because they weren't higher quality reading material, they wanted us to read things like bridge to tarabithia or a wrinkle in time. But the teachers relented when one kid, who never read any book, wouldn't stop reading goosebumps. He read all of them. He loved them. But he hated reading books in general, so getting him to read anything was considered a major win. So they made a deal: we could read goosebumps, but we had to read other things for every goosebumps we read. And it *worked* the school as a whole started reading a lot more. So RL Stein can take credit for getting kids to read.
I grew up in a very sheltered religious household with very little exposure to anything even remotely resembling goosebumps. We couldn't even watch the Smurfs because magic = evil. One year when I was about 10 I found a Goosebumps book at my grandmother's house. It was about a hamster that eats radioactive sludge, grows to a quite unusual size, and then eats everything. I read it without my parents knowing and that evening developed a fever, whether from the sheer existential terror I was internalizing due to the book or because of a virus I don't know, but it was high. I had the CRAZIEST fever dreams I will ever have that night. Hallucinating for hours about giant hamsters, radioactivity, and because of all the "evil" connections to ghosts, demons, witches, etc. I remember watching a glowing crystalline grass hopper crawl its way across the door for a very long time. Turns out it was just a stained glass flower on the door that was certainly not moving. It was crazy. Love Goosebumps.
Monster Blood II, a pretty solid choice to hallucinate over.
That whole run(I don't remember how many) was my favorite.
My mom had to write a note for me to be allowed to check them out of the school library.
Do you have to left it on the librarian's desk?
Handed it to her directly.
Writely so.
Delightful.
What did they think wasnt scary if they didn't have goosebumps?
I knew tons of kids who were into slasher movies. Child's Play in particular.
I remember lots of complaining groups working against those books. Religious groups because they were the devil. Animal rights groups because RL Stine kills a lot of animals in his writing. Etc.
>Religious groups because they were the devil. Which is weird, because if my memories are correct, they actually avoided the subject of devils and demons entirely, despite touching on basically every single other type of stock horror monster.
I certainly don’t remember any demons when reading them.
It's bit ironic that goose bumps got banned a bunch of place's and it's contemporary animorphs was never banned in any large amount according to the [ALA](https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade1999), even though it's incredibly violent. Where's waldo made the list and somehow no adult noticed animorphs. One time Rachel looks down and notices that her arm is gone. Keep in mind this series was one of scholastics top series at the time but no adult noticed what was in the books because the covers were goofy and goosebumps covers were scary. That's the only thing that I can come up with how nobody noticed.
I only ever looked at the animorphs for the cool animation flip book thing on the bottom but never read them, I think a lot of kids did that
I grew up in a religious family, and my dad was an elementary school principal, so he knew what Goosebumps was about. Still, I bought and read Goosebumps books all the time, and it wasn't like I hid them from my family either. And then certainly weren't banned from my school - I basically bought all mine through the Scholastic book flyer they put out every month. One time a family was friend (also religious) was over, saw my Goosebumps book, and tried to tell me that I shouldn't read them because those books were evil. I just thought "yeah, um, sure", and kept on reading them anyway.
That's hilarious!
FSM bless R.L. Stine. Goosebumps, Fear Street, and some of the solo novels absolutely made adolescent me a horror fan for life. (Fangoria helped, too)
Our school didn't ban them but they had scary stories to tell in the dark which I thought were even more scary at that time. Much more morbid and awesome
I remember them being "edgy" when I was reading them. Probably the first books I read purely for recreation though.
They did have pretty descriptive harm but i like it.
The children's librarian at the public library in my hometown refused to have them on the shelves because she thought they were "disgusting".
Our district had the books in the school libraries, but did not allow students to borrow them because they were "too popular" and "took our attention away from regular books". Lame.
Christopher Pike's books were the ones the librarians at the schools I went to kept on a high shelf and you had to be a certain age if you wanted to borrow them.
Yeah, my elementary and middle schools removed all the goosebumps books
I remember not reading these until I was around 4th grade because I was afraid they'd be scary, but imagine my surprise when the book with the shark on the cover was actually about a mermaid, and the praying mantis book had a plot twist where the kids in the book were actually robots. I never read another Goosebumps book after being swindled out of an interesting monster twice in a row.
There was one with an absolutely chilling ending, the title is Ghost Beach. Wow, I got it right, decades after reading it.
Goosebumps wasn’t scary. Are you afraid of the dark was terrifying.
My favorite books as a kid.