Welcome to Dead House
by R. L. Stine is the story of a
house in the shady little town of Dark Falls. After the Benson family received
the news that they inherited the house through a will of some uncle, they
decided to move to Dark Falls. Amanda and Josh – the children – hated it from
the moment they laid their eyes on the house. Even their pet terrier Petey
seemed to hate the place. It started behaving in a strange unfriendly way. Once
it even ran away all the way to the cemetery. Soon after they settled in their
new home, Amanda began to feel the presence of somebody else in the house – a boy
– that she caught staring down at them from her own room. Then she met another
girl at the staircase, smiling menacingly at Amanda. Her parents dismissed it
as her imagination. May be it was all her imagination indeed – she forced herself
to believe.
While their parents were still unpacking, Amanda and Josh went
for a stroll around the neighbourhood and met Ray, a neighbourhood boy, who
took them to the playground near school. There they met some more children.
They became friends. Some those children told Amanda that they once lived in
the same house she was living now. For some reason, that disturbed Amanda. Petey
continued giving them a hard time. Josh still took Petey with him everywhere.
But now it had to be put under leash.
Then one day, Petey went missing.
Amanda and Josh searched the neighbourhood till they
themselves were lost. They couldn’t find their way back till they reached the
school. From there they ran to their house. Petey hadn’t returned there either.
Their parents were invited by some neighbour to a party. So they left. Soon it
occurred to Josh that Petey might be in the cemetery; because that was the
first place the dog ran away to when they arrived here. Armed with a Flashlight
Amanda and Josh went to the cemetery. From here the story took a scary turn. It
was there among the gravestones that they would find out the unnerving truth
about Dark Falls and its people.
R. L. Stine’s
Goosebumps series are already much popular among kids. These stories are short,
written in simple decent English - that is ideal for young readers. Often the
main protagonists in these books are children themselves. Though Stephen King
is a much celebrated writer of Horrors, his stories are more suitable for adult
readers. Welcome to Dead House and
other books in Goosebumps series by R.
L. Stine is written primarily for children. It is unlikely that an adult
already familiar with King’s literature would find this book scary. Nevertheless,
Welcome to Dead House will be a
great read to its targeted readers – the children.
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