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Book Review: Goosebumps The Movie: Monster Survival Guide

Goosebumps  The Movie: Monster Survival Guide– All the Tips and Tricks You’ll Need to Fight an Invasion in Your Hometown by Susan Lurie

Scholastic, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-0545821261

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

The Goosebumps Survival Guide is the newest monster survival guide to come our way. It’s based on the movie Goosebumps, which is in turn based on R.L. Stine’s enormously popular Goosebumps, series and its related franchises. Does the book live up to its hype? The art is pretty cool, done in typical garish Goosebumps style. and integrates screenshots from the movie.  The book tells  you about the Goosebumps monsters, such as the Godzilla sized praying mantis, and zombie pirate One-Legged Ben, each in turn. Accompanying text identifying the monster includes  the name of the book or books the monster appears in and then a short block of text from that book, But the problem is that the book does not live up to its title. In most of the book, the entries do NOT tell you how to survive an invasion or defeat the monster, and if the entry does include that information, it is not really helpful. For example, with the Godzilla-sized mantis the books  says you have to squash it with your foot, but the REAL question is: How do you squash something that is bigger than you?. So that is what I saw while reading the survival guide. I did find helpful information on Slappy the Dummy, who has an extended six-page entry. When it says that Slappy is afraid of termites you might be able to defeat it by releasing termites nearby, because termites love to eat wooden dummies. So all you Goosebumps fans (and monsters) alike might like this when you are about to settle down for a long winter’s nap. But readers beware because you might have some unexpected visitors while reading.   Recommended for elementary school and children’s libraries, especially because of the media tie-in, but with reservations for young monster hunters.

Reviewed by the Monster Kid

 

 

 

Posted on December 24, 2015 by , Reply

Don’t Trust Disney!

Usually when someone comments on Disney movies it’s either “They’re wonderful” or “they’re awful”.

I can run with both. You can’t escape Disney now. It’s so huge and encompasses so many brands and types of media that half the time you don’t even know you have a Disney product in your hands. I think a lot of us feel nostalgia for the first time we saw a Disney movie (especially if you are old enough to remember the time before VCRs and DVDs, when you had to wait seven years for the movie to come back to the theater so you could see it again). Some of the messages Disney, through its many faces, aggressively promotes, are uncomfortable and even sources of outrage. But something you rarely hear about in the discussions of Disney movies is that they are really scary. As in, fear-inducing. You cannot take your kid to a Disney movie with the belief that it will be all sunshine and flowers. Unless some of the flowers are roses with really vicious thorns, or the garden is on fire. Someone over at FEARnet started a discussion on movies that scared the members as kids. The first one he recalled was Sleeping Beauty. It’s true, Maleficent is terrifying, and I’ve never forgotten her (on a side note, it’s amazing to me how many people said they had watched IT or The Exorcist between the ages of 5 and 10). The shadows from the Frog Princess gave my son nightmares. And Ursula from the Little Mermaid… yikes. And those are just the animated movies.

Anyway, the folks at FEARnet did a short interview with an archivist at the Disney Archives where she showed off some of the props from a few of the past Disney movies. It’s really interesting to watch, and it does make you think. Who decides a movie is a children’s movie, anyway? If you are planning to take your child to a Disney movie, you might want to check out a trailer first, and try to evaluate whether the fright factor is one your child can handle.  Even my monster-loving kid has been known to run from the room or hide under a pillow during Disney films. Just because it’s a “princess movie”, a “children’s movie”, or a “family film”, you can’t trust Disney to make the decision an easy one.

Posted on May 1, 2013 by , Reply

Girls Gone Missing? Halloween and Monster Movies for Kids

Margot Magowan runs the blog Reel Girl , which focuses on gender equality in the media (mostly on the representation, or lack thereof,  of girls) does a regular feature called “Girls Gone Missing”. With Halloween just around the corner, she did a Halloween edition of this feature and shared her impressions of the three Halloween/monster movies for children out this fall, ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, and Frankenweenie. noting that in all three movies there is a major skew toward male leads and secondary characters, with almost no female characters in any of them. Margot and the Reel Girl community see this as a major problem, not just for these movies but for children’s movies in general, because there’s no reason that some of these male characters couldn’t be girls without the story changing at all. To paraphrase one of her commenters, does the story in ParaNorman change that much if Norman becomes Norma?

There are so many girls who love Halloween and monsters and movies about them, who grow up to be women who love Halloween and monsters and movies about them. So why should they be left out of the story, or a token character? But it’s one thing to identify the movies girls are missing from and another to offer options that show strong girls taking the lead. So, I asked Margot:

 

What do you recommend as far as monster movies intended for kids, then? As the editor for MonsterLibrarian.com and the mother of a monster-loving boy with a sister willing to go along for the ride I’d be interested in what you DO think are good choices. We held Monster Movie Month in July, which, while mostly at choices for adults, was inspired by my son’s love of the classic movies, and the three of us picked some movie choices parents could share with their kids, but I’d love to know what you think. Halloween is our busiest month of the year and our children’s section is one of the most popular parts of our site and that’s something I would love to share there.

Margot asked the Reel Girl community for suggestions, and here are some of the titles they came up with.

Coraline
Scooby Doo (the animated series)
The Corpse Bride
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Hocus Pocus
Kiki’s Delivery Service
My Neighbor Totoro
Monsters vs Aliens
The Addams Family

As a Halloween title, I’ll toss in the Charlie Brown Halloween special.

The general portrayal of women in horror movies also came up in the discussion, but that’s kind of irrelevant to my question (although it’s something I would be happy to start an individual post for if you want). For those of you reading this, do you agree with their choices for Halloween and monster movies that have gender equality (or at least strong female characters who haven’t been sexualized)? Do you have additional suggestions? I would love to hear what you think!

Posted on October 2, 2012 by , Reply
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