Goosebumps book 20: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight - It’s a field of screams!

WOW. It has been awhile. But don't worry, I have still been keeping up on my reading, I just lacked internet access for the past month.

Brief Summary: 

Jodie and Mark are visiting Grandma and Grandpa on their farm, but things are weird. Grandma won’t make pancakes and Grandpa won’t tell scary stories and resident farmhand Stanley won’t stop talking about his “superstition book”, which is never described beyond that. The kids start seeing things, it’s as if the 12 new scarecrows are coming alive! But that couldn’t be, Jodie thinks it’s Stanley’s teenage son, “Sticks”, playing tricks on them. And as expected, things get wildly out of control from there. 

Spoilers and Review:

This is pretty standard Goosebumps, but I have some questions. Almost immediately we meet Stanley the farmhand who is described as “weird” and “not very smart” and we are clearly being led to believe that he has some mental differences, and I’ll be honest, I was pretty unsettled by the way Stanley was portrayed, because he is also presented as “the bad guy” or at least the root of the problem, and his entire character development is inconsistent because most of the time he is entirely sweet and well-meaning but also for some reason is blackmailing his bosses to do everything his way or else he’ll send the scarecrows after them? It didn’t make a lot of sense and I didn’t care for it, it made me uncomfortable.

But other than that, the scarecrows are actually pretty scary, even though their intentions are never clear, like when all the scarecrows rip their own heads off and keep attacking SO THEY SET THEM ON FIRE was such crazy imagery and I LOVED IT. But seriously, someone’s gotta get that superstition book away from Stanley because the “twist ending” involves Stanley bringing a full sized taxidermy BEAR to life. Nope.

The Rating: 

Definitely not the best story but a fun scary monster. 

1. One Day at HorrorLand (#16)
2. Welcome to Camp Nightmare (#9)
3. Why I’m Afraid of Bees (#17)
4. Stay Out of the Basement (#2)
5. Deep Trouble (#19)
6. Night of the Living Dummy (#7)
7. The Haunted Mask (#11)
8. The Girl Who Cried Monster (#8)
9. Piano Lessons Can Be Murder (#13)
10. Welcome to Dead House (#1)
11. Say Cheese and Die! (#4)
12. Let’s Get Invisible! (#6)
13. The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight (#20)
14. The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (#14)
15. The Ghost Next Door (#10)
16. Monster Blood (#3)
17. Be Careful What You Wish For… (#12)
18. You Can’t Scare Me! (#15)
19. The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (#5)
20. Monster Blood II (#18)

Next is Go Eat Worms which I imagine is a pretty self-explanatory title.