The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps House of Shivers #07: What We Do At Night

It's time for the second of the two Goosebumps House of Shivers books. We had a really strong start this year when One Night at Camp Bigfoot turned out to be pretty good all told. I still maintain that, with a couple exceptions, that House of Shivers has been consistently good. Well not we have kids who are also birds to deal with this time around. Part of me hopes that this is a make-good for the stinker that was Night of the Squawker. But knowing Stine, I'm giving him too much credit again. Only one way to know for sure, let's find out What We Do At Night.

I like this cover. And a lot of that has to do with the colors. The purples, the oranges, yellows, pinks and blues that makes everything really pop. I especially love the sky, It's very pretty. And then we have our nightbirds and I do like their general designs. More crow-like, but they have human arms. I like how gangly and creepy they look on the bird on the mailbox.Then we have the one in the sky who is more human than bird. There's even some classic Jacobus styled warping. It all makes for honestly one of the better covers in House of Shivers. One that Robert Ball illustrated mind you, it's not AI. I still maintain that, despite concerns on how the art can look, I don't believe that there's any evidence of Ball using AI outside of pure speculation and people just generally not liking his work and thus we throw the accusations. But, those issues aside, this is still a top notch cover. Not super scary, but one of the more compelling covers. 

Noah Baungardner's having a bit of a rough time. His family moved from Vermont to Georgia and due to that, Noah doesn't have any friends. And it being April with school almost over, he's worried he won't luck out on any friends. But he does at least have Punky, his dog which is a kind of doodle dog. Honestly I'd say Punky is one of the better Stine animal names I've seen in a while. With no AC in his house, Noah decides to head out to his backyard in the middle of the night to get some fresh air. He suddenly hears something nearby. Kids laughing and talking. Noah, curious as to why other kids would be outside in the middle of the night without considering the always concerning "doing drugs" option, decides to check out what's going. He's caught by the foursome, two boys, two girls, all wearing dark shirts and clothing. They introduce themselves as Carlo, Sadie, Deena and Leo, the Night Birds. Noah tries to get any answers from them, where they live, their parents, what they do at night, but they remain extremely vague. You know, maybe I wasn't too off on suspecting drugs.

Noah heads home, but still wants to pursue the Night Birds. All he knows of them is they hang out every night and do stuff. And he's the kind of kid who would love to hang around every night and also do stuff. But Noah does at least find a couple kids in school to be his friend, Sid Shriner, who collects "trinkets" hoping he'll get in on the ground floor of the next big trend. Also Maisie Connors, who he met early into joining Harper Middle School. He asks Sid about the Night Birds and Sid's aware of them, but not what they do at night. Later that night, Noah tries to head out again, but slips down the stairs and wakes his parents up. But he still manages to sneak out and meet with Sid. But when they head to where the Night Birds meet, they get attacked by crows instead with no sign of any kids around. The two head home, with Noah noting that it's odd that crows would be up at night and would be in such a way that they'd seem to start attacking anything nearby.

The next morning, Noah talks with Maisie about the crow attack, to which she shows him a video of crows attacking a nearby grocery shop and helping themselves to the fruit. I imagine given the delinquency of these "crows" they're just shitting everywhere too. He meets the Night Birds again who mention that they weren't there the previous night because of the crows, which they want to be like, so they call themselves the Night Birds in tribute. They also use the term "tough cheese" when Noah mentions not finding them the other night, which Noah finds weird. Sid shows up and the two try to get any answers, but the Night Birds still don't provide any. They ask to join them, but Carlo tells them that they might not be Night Bird material as they'll likely not pass any tests. but these two are eager for anything, so they're given the shot. 

The next night is the first test, which has Noah and Sid climbing an old dead tree. Whoever makes it highest wins. Noah falls, but Sid makes it to the top, which earns praise from the Night Birds, but some scorn from a very salty Noah. Two more tests remain but the next one will be the night after because I guess what they do at night is pad things. Noah returns home, but sees a bunch of crows about to attack him. He wakes his parents who are upset at him being out at 2AM, but don't believe him when he mentions the Night Birds for some reasons. Like nothing even supernatural has happened to even scoff at. Hell, I'd probably be more concerned my kid's hanging out with a gang in the middle of the night. This might be the most shoehorned "because Goosebumps Parents" moment in quite a while. Test number two has the boys eating mealworms. Noah can't bring himself to do it, but Sid finishes them off easily, which means yes, this has more actual worm eating than the book Go Eat Worms! But this also means Noah's two for three on failing tests.

I guess even Stine realizes the "test a night" gimmick is a bit tiresome because the third and final test is immediately after. This time the boys are taken to the woods to Doomsday Drop, a steep cliff above a lake. And for the boys to pass, they have to go jump off the drop into the lake. However, they don't actually do that as instead the Night Birds and Sid then transform into the crows in front of Noah. So yeah, Noah was one of them this whole time I guess, which explains getting up the tree and eating the worms with no problems. Sid perches by Noah, revealing his human face and apologizes for not cluing him in on this ever, before going back to full crow and flying off. The next day Noah tells his mother about the whole situation but she doesn't even listen to him, more focused on the gnats in the house. He tells Maisie, but she doesn't believe him either, but he invites her to spy on the Night Birds to get proof. He then heads to his locker when a bunch of water spills out on to him. Sid catches up to him and apologizes for never telling him about the whole "I am also a Night Bird" thing, but warns Noah that now that he knows about who they are and what they do at night, the Night Birds are out to get him to shut him up. 

That night, Noah and Maisie spy on the Night Birds, but nothing happens, causing Maisie to believe him even less. Sid then shows up and makes sure that Maisie doesn't believe Noah's "kids turning to birds" claims and she leaves. He tells Noah that he's his friend, but if he's going to blab about the Night Birds, he won't be able to save him. Noah heads home and suddenly his window smashes and the crows attack him. But when he gets his parents, the crows are gone. He takes Punky out for a walk and again gets attacked by the crows. So yeah we've gone from some compelling stuff to a lot of lather, rinse repeat. Feels like a Goosebumps book alright. At lunch the next day, he tries to talk with Maisie but she doesn't believe him still. He opens his lunchbox, but it's filled with mealworms, which gets him in trouble. And this time he doesn't try to explain it to his parents since the book has hammered it in that nobody believes this kid for shit.

But Noah still needs to get this sorted with before the crows just up and kill him, so he heads back out the next night. He goes to record the Night Birds, but ends up being caught by a cop for breaking curfew. He also forgot to record the video so this was all for naught. He's brought home, but his parents are missing! No, wait, they were looking for him first. The next night Noah goes out AGAIN. Gotta tell you, this book's getting hella redundant, but at least we're at the home stretch. Noah confronts the Night Birds and says that this all ends now. They then transform into crows and start to attack him. 

But then Noah turns into a cat. A large feral cat. He attacks the Night Birds and mauls them, but leaves them alive, because this is a kid's book after all. After the Night Birds escape, he runs into another cat who was Maisie all along. Oh. Oh this SCREAMS he had no idea how to end this book. 

This book is just fine. Far from a bad Goosebumps book, but after such a great book last time, this does feel like a noticeable drop off. And I think it's because this book feels redundant as hell. It feels like we do the same thing over and over again. Noah goes out, confronts the Night Birds, returns home, has to explain what's going on with his parents who don't believe him. Lather, rinse, repeat for 149 pages. I do wish the Night Birds felt interesting as characters, or there was like any answer as to what they are. Just that they're humans who turn into crows. Even when we get the twist that Sid is also a Night Bird, we still don't get any answers. I get that not every piece of horror work needs to explain everything, but I also feel like Stine didn't quite know how to explain the Night Birds, so they ultimately just are these kids who can, for some reason, turn into birds and cause mayhem at night. 

And I can absolutely tell that Stine didn't know what to do with this book because what the hell was up with that twist? So Noah can turn into a feral cat. He could turn into this feral cat the entire time. Nothing about the situation presented has it that Noah just suddenly discovered that he can do so. He just always could. If there's any subtle hints at all, I guess it's him constantly going out at night much like a cat would. But if he can turn into a cat this entire time, what was stopping him, especially once the threats began? I get not doing it when Maisie was there, but he could have gone after them on the night he ended up caught by the cop. It feels like Stine needed a way to wrap the book up with a twist that he felt could work, and it almost does if not for so many factors that keep it from working. Although I guess it doesn't help that I could have called that twist a mile away. Even as I started reading and the book opens with Noah mentioning he has a secret, I immediately went "Oh, he's a cat, the reveal is he's a cat". Which also means two books in a row with werecats. You're slippin' Bob.

Noah's an okay protagonist. You feel for his plight when it comes to needing friends, and you could at least understand his need to join a group like the Night Birds. There just isn't much to his character outside of "I got out at night and also I used to like the game Angry Birds". Sid could be interesting, especially after the reveal, but the book rushes to the finish line so quick we really get nothing from him besides the veiled threats. Same with the Night Birds themselves. I wish they were characters because they are interesting. Kind of giving me vibes of the likes of the Creeps, only without the whole alien invasion stuff. Maisie's interesting, but the twist also feels weird when it comes to her. Again, she too is a werecat, but she doesn't believe that there could be were-crows? So I guess only one supernatural thing can occur in Georgia, but two is just too wild to be conceieved.

Ultimately what this book feels like isn't a redo of Night of the Squawker. I thought we'd get a concept of Noah becoming a Night Bird physically through transforming, but that obviously doesn't happen nor does it ever have a chance to happen given the cat twist. So what this book really feels like is a longer take on For The Birds from Even More Tales to Give You Goosebumps. Although the concept and how the characters turn to birds and the protagonist to a cat are handled much differently in both books, it's the one I thought of the most, especially once I figured what the twist would be. And given that this book does feel like a short story stretched out to almost 150 pages, I can definitely get that feeling of being lifted from a short story with this book.  

So overall, not one of the stronger House of Shivers books. There's some neat ideas, and I do like some of the concepts within. But the twist feels too much like a last minute addition, the book pads itself out with so many of these encounters and just feels like it's missing one or two things to actually make it exciting. It's far from a bad book, but it also feels a bit doomed to be a rather forgettable book in the grand scheme. I'd still recommend it regardless. It doesn't quite fly high enough, but it's far from a big pile of bird poop, so it has that going for it. Next up, you knew it was coming eventually. We're back to the evil dummies. But this promises to be a brand new dummy who is the big new villain. It's going to be Slappy isn't it, I mean he's already on the damn cover. We'll see in 2027.