The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #18: Night of the Squawker

It's a new year which means new Goosebumps offerings. And can it be? We're almost done with SlappyWorld? Lenny-I mean Slappy's reign of terror is almost over? Oh frabjous day! But we still have two more books to go and going by the initial synopsis, can't say I'm as hyped or this one. Mainly because it screams "another puberty allegory." Does this book flap, slap, or is it crap? Let's see with Night of the Squawker.

It feels like every time I go to bat for Brandon Dorman being the perfect replacement for the Tim Jacobus as cover illustrator, I get validated with an awesome piece of artwork. and that is definitely the case with this cover. I like the molten orange of a fiery explosion in the background as our titular squawker is breaking free from a chain link fence with an "Experimental Area" sign hung on it. And then there's our squawker and what a fearsome beast with its glowing red eye and monstrous beak with fangs. Even doing a bit of spitting for a gross detail. Dorman almost always lands with creature designs and this joins that list with aplomb. Incredible stuff.

We open with protagonist Cooper Klavan and his friend Denzel collecting wood in the forest to build a fire back at camp. Why? Because it'll keep the zombies away of course. But as they head back they see zombies coming to get them. But this isn't actually happening it's just for a movie that Cooper, Denzel and their friends are making. One of the zombies ends up tripping on the ground, causing the director, Marla Magee, to stop their film as the zombie actor, Ezra Stone, tripped on his untied shoe. The kids have been working on their movie Zombie Woods for a while, wanting to get it ready for a film festival. 

Suddenly, Cooper's eleven year old sister Anna shows up, who their dad calls Anna Banana and she always wears a banana shirt. I mean, it's a lame nickname but there have been much, much worse. If this were years ago it'd be fatso or stringbean or some crap. Anyway, Anna is here to tell Cooper that their parents are heading out to the go fishing and he has to come, zombie movie or no zombie movie. Anna also wants to be in the movie. Ultimately Cooper relents and lets her in the movie, but first we're going fishing at Deepwater Pond with their parents who are paleontologists. Not studying dinosaurs, but rather the lineage of certain animals, namely birds. Oh. OH ALREADY, BOB? thirteen pages deep and you shine a big beacon on what the twist likely is? Well, let's press forward regardless. 

Cooper's annoyed that he can't film his zombie movie, but his dad keeps suggesting to do a documentary on the fishing trip, which Cooper continues to shut him down on. As they arrive at the pond, Anna heads out into the forest and Cooper follows after her. He finds her carrying a sickly looking bird that's about as big as a turkey, with a narrow face, scraggly feathers, kind of looks like a crow but makes honking noises. It has a broken leg, so Anna, being an animal lover (Huh, Anna, Animal, Anna-mal. Doubt Stine was that clever but still), tells Cooper that they have to take care of it. As their parents show up, the bird bites Anna in the arm. Not enough to break the skin, but still painful enough. Of course since this was all exciting, dad again mentions that Cooper should have used this time to film his documentary. I mean, he's a Goosebumps parent, but he's not wrong either. As they leave, Cooper notices a sign that says "EXPERIMENTAL AREA, PLEASE DON'T FEED THE BIRDS." Nah, just give them a short beer instead. 

They take the bird home and it tries to attack Cooper, but everyone else just jokes about it because this is pretty much all they've done so far. They're Goosebumps parents, but jovial ones? Anna keeps the bird in a cage with the other animals she takes care of and calls it Oggie. The next day comes and Ezra can't work the zombie video due to being sick, so Cooper asks Anna, but now she's more interested in Oggie than zombies. But she ultimately goes to the shoot. There she suddenly starts pecking at the ground for some reason, but when pressed about it, she's confused. Other than that, it goes well. Later that night, after eating pizza, Anna feels sick and is about to head upstairs, then suddenly has a panic attack about her pet cat Suzie, wanting the cat to be away from her. 

Later that night, Cooper heads to Anna's room to put a blanket over Oggie's cage, hoping it'll shut the bird up, but he sees Oggie on Anna's head. Not only that, but there are feathers under Anna's blanket. So this just leaves him even more confused. The next morning, everyone has breakfast with Cooper and Anna being given their dad's patented "Power Juice", a mixture of pear, grapefruit, and special vitamins that I'm sure won't play into the finale somehow. Anna has a panic attack about having eggs for breakfast, then is discovered to have one under her as if she was trying to hatch it. More confused, Cooper tries to find out what kind of bird Oggie is through a bird finding app, but has no luck. It's as if he's some strange new creature or something.

 Then, later, Cooper sees Anna squawking and preening. So, he decides the logical thing to do is to record his sister's actions to show to his parents so that MAYBE they'll take this seriously. They head to the shoot, all while Anna continues to not know what's going on. She didn't remember preening, or hearing Oggie's screeches, or anything. Nor does she know how she suddenly ends up on a high branch in a tree. Marla calls the fire department, but as soon as they arrive, Anna's on the ground, again having no idea what's going on. Either she's got a bad memory or she's the world's worst gaslighter. But now there's gray feathers in her hair. 

But it gives Cooper an idea. His sister seems to be going birdy all of a sudden, and the deadline for the movie is coming up. So why not just skip the zombie movie and film his sister without her consent? Look, I blame the dad for pounding that whole documentary idea into Cooper's head but oh god this is pretty low. And he's also doing this while not telling his parents because they're scientists, they'll fix her for sure after. Because if there's anyone that could fix a child turning into a bird, it's PALEONTOLOGISTS! Look, he's a dumb kid but by god he shouldn't be this dumb. So from this point on, anything that happens with this dingus is his own fault. As Cooper and Denzel go to check on Anna, they see her on the window ledge about to fly out. They stop her and again she's all "no, I wasn't." Then Oggie, leg healed, leaps out the window. But their dad gets the bird back and the bird almost bites Cooper. Well that was a chapter. 

And even after all that, Cooper still wants to film some more of Anna for his video. Because surely this isn't going to get worse. Cooper and Denzel meet with Mr. Klavan who offers Denzel some of his Power Juice and then monologues about what it would be like to be as free as a bird. And this bird you cannot chaaaaaaaange? Also, hammer it in harder Bob. That night, Cooper wakes up and sees Anna leaving the house with a giant trash bag. He follows her into the woods as she grabs a bunch of debris. He soon realizes that she's building a giant nest. He tells his parents the next day, Anna still denies it, when they go in her room, there's a bag full of sticks she claims was for Oggie. He then finally remembers the videos he made, but when he shows them to his family, they've been deleted. So all that "baby's first voyeurism" for nothing.

So Cooper's final idea is to get rid of Oggie. He grabs the bird and is about to get rid of it when Anna shows up and then bites him. He panics, but then goes to bed. He has a dream about being a bird, then wakes up thinking he's one for a second before relaxing. He's about to have cereal, but he goes to the box of bait for the fishing trip earlier and starts to eat the worms, which is, say it with me: MORE ACTUAL EATING OF WORMS THAN GO EAT WORMS! He's sprouting feathers, as is Anna, and it's here where we finally find out what's going on.

See, this was all the experiment of their parents. The Power Juice? A mixture of bird DNA. See, the Klavan parents loved birds so much, that they decided to experiment not just on themselves, but their kids. Oggie didn't matter a god damn. He was just some weird bird. And so our book ends with the Klavan family flying off. Okay, it's not a puberty allegory, but more of a forced puberty allegory? Oh that... that's worse.

So, I was made aware of the twist early on. Totally my fault on that, I admit. But even had I went in full-blind, it wouldn't change the fact that this book is not that good. The worst book ever? Nah. Still bad? Oh yeah. And I think it has a lot to do with just how obvious this feels. Because we've done this story before. A lot. But I have one super strong example in particular. Most Wanted's The Lizard of Oz was damn near the exact same book. Kid gets bitten by creature, starts acting strange and changing, a filming of them is involved, and we learn that the creature had nothing to do with it, this was just some other reason. Even down to being a family thing in general. Same in a way with Judy and the Beast. Same with Night of the Werecat from Ghosts of Fear Street (Not exactly Stine, but an example regardless). Even similar to the granddaddy of puberty allegories, My Hairiest Adventure, given it involves kids being experimented on and turning into something else. Only that was dogs to kids to dogs, not kids to birds, but the same science lean is there.

In this case, it's less the obvious puberty allegory and more a pair of scientist parents using themselves and their kids as science projects. Which is, again, Stine's "evils of science" stance that he loves to do. This time feeling a bit more nefarious than usual. Because, even if they meant to do it due to their love of birds, and even Anna's love of animals in general, they still drugged their kids without their consent and trapped them as bird people forever, again without their consent. So, they may have reached the pinnacle when it comes to the worst Goosebumps parents. I could also argue how drinking bird DNA wouldn't really turn you into one, but I also recently read a Stine book where a kid turns into a pig boy by being injected with pig DNA and being electrocuted. I'll abstain because Bob Stine's a maniac sometimes. 

And even aside from the worst parents issue, the book does feels very feet dragging in the middle. Anna does something bird-like, Cooper and the others notice it, Anna says she didn't do it, lather, rinse, repeat to lesser and lesser interesting results. Honestly, the best one of the incidents is the tree incident mid-book as it's the one with the most urgency. Even the nest stuff, while focused a lot, feels less important. And that one is so close to the end that you're just ready to check out anyway, so it's less of a bother while mainly just a groaner. You're just waiting for the inevitable to happen and when it does, it's not that interesting of an end result. Just the most obvious outcome that these books could come up with. Telegraphed as bad as it can be to boot. "My parents study birds." "Dad has this power juice stuff." "DON'T YOU ENVY BIRDS, KIDS?" Like, the one time I wished he would veer in a different direction for the twist, I wish it was this one because the formula is getting old. I don't know if it's Stine or what, but the last few books feel like there's such a neat concept, but the end result feels so lacking. 

Cooper sucks. Plain and simple. I feel no sympathy for him whatsoever. The minute he tried to capitalize on his sister's plight was the moment he deserved no pity. So when the videos get deleted I'm like "yeah, serves you right you little creep." If he was just filming her to prove to the parents, that would be one thing. He intended to use this for a video contest. For his own personal gain. While Anna was getting worse and worse. Her health and safety went to the wayside for profit. So, in the bin with you, kid. Anna is okay, but the whole "I didn't do it" shtick gets old quick. Like, is she just so drugged out her memory doesn't work? Does it just blank at a moment's notice? Was she aware all along and was just screwing with Cooper for really no discernable reason? The parents are interesting villains who only become villains by the end, Oggie's just a red herring, Denzel exists, and the others are all Superfluous Clays.

And it's such a shame that yet again a really cool cover ultimately is for a really bland book. For once Bob, let the cool creature on the cover actually matter. Hell, the cool bird on the cover isn't even what Oggie looks like in the story. Just some weird lumpy pheasant. Bob, Brandon, if you're going to give me a creepy bird, at least have it be an accurate one. God I wish Oggie mattered, or the experimental area stuff, or anything. Red herrings work fine sometimes, but when you overdo it, and good lord Stine overdoes it, it just becomes too obvious that nothing matters. Maybe they did at one point, but I'm starting to doubt it. I don't think Stine swerved. I think this was always the middling direction Stine was headed and oh lordy is it just not satisfying.

If I'm being honest, I'm just finally getting tired of the red herring monsters in these books. These cool ideas in concept that amount to jack all in the long run. And this is coming off Haunting With the Stars, another book that has a neat cover and concept, but Stine, for one reason or another, doesn't try. And good lord if ever there was an example of "DO SOMETHING!" it's that book. Hell, I'd rather be reading a book about Slappy instead. I mean, he's old hat but at least I know what I'm getting and it'll at least be mildly amusing. I get it, adult putting stock in a kids book series, but like, it just shows that Stine's quality for kids book work lately has been so middling and barebones. Almost like we're back to quota Stine from the Series 2000 era. But at least that era could be fun in how absurd Stine's ideas were. Now they're just predictable skeletons that unfortunately aren't having a skeleton picnic.

So throw this one in the pile of mediocre SlappyWorld books. Not as boring as Haunting With the Stars, things do happen, but it just feels like such a cool idea that Stine just simply doesn't try with. It could work with more interesting set pieces and moments. But instead it's back to the status quo which is becoming more blatant. Right down to the same twist he's done over and over and over and over and over again. SlappyWorld peaked with Dummy Meets the Mummy and frigging nosedived ever since. We got one more book. One final SlappyWorld book in July. And it actually has monsters in it. But Stine has also admitted that he had to pad this one, so I'm already expecting him to not stick the landing. 

STORY: GG

SCARES: G.5

TWIST: GG.5

ENJOYMENT: G.5

OVERALL: 2 Gs