When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist’s dummy in a Dumpster, Lindy decides to “rescue” it, and she names it Slappy. But Kris is green with envy. It’s not fair. Why does Lindy get to have all the fun and all the attention? Kris decides to get a dummy of her own. She’ll show Lindy. Then weird things begin to happen. Nasty things. Evil things. It can’t be the dummy causing all the trouble, Can it?
Review of Night of the Living Dummy
I’ve said before that I’ve probably read at least one R.L. Stine book, but honestly don’t remember much about it. Well, I decided to change that and see if I could interest the Mini-Reviewer in one of the books again. Not much luck there, but I pressed on and read it myself. Night of the Living Dummy is definitely one of those books that feels like it appeals only within it’s intended age range. Some books, like Prometheus Project: Trapped appeal across the ages. This is not one of them.
I wouldn’t say that I was bored with Night of the Living Dummy, because a solid third of it was actually mildly entertaining on a certain level. It was also a ridiculously quick and easy read. The book feels a bit dated, but the idea of dummies coming to life is definitely the root of at least one nightmare I’ve had. The pace is fast, the twist at the end was one I completely did not see coming, and again – whilst it doesn’t appeal to me personally – I can see the appeal for 8-10 year olds.
Overall, I can’t highly recommend it, but if you’ve got any little boys or girls in the 8-10 age range, you might try them out on it. Especially if you’ve let them watch the Goosebumps movie. (Have to admit, that was the primary reason I chose this book to be my first official R.L. Stine read.)
Title: Night of the Living Dummy | Series: Goosebumps: #7 | Author: R.L. Stine (site) | Publisher: Scholastic | Pub. Date: 2003-9-1 | Pages: 134 | ISBN13: 9780439568401 | Genre: Children’s Horror | Language: English | Triggers: None | Rating: 3 out of 5 | Date Read: 2016-5-20 | Source: Kindle Unlimited