The Spider’s Sons

The Spider’s Sons was originally published on One-elevenbooks

#1055 Adventures of Silicon Jones by Charlotte Henley Babb

#1055 Adventures of Silicon Jones by Charlotte Henley Babb was originally published on One-elevenbooks

#992 Say Cheese and Die Again by R.L. Stine

Say Cheese and Die Again by R.L. Stine

Greg has to do a report in his class about something true that happened to him. He decides to tell the class about a time he and his friends found an evil camera in an old house. The teacher doesn’t even let him finish and gives him an F, but Greg needs good grades to go and visit his cousins over the summer. The teacher tells Greg that he will reconsider the F, if Greg can prove the camera was evil.

This is a bad idea, but Greg decides that he has to go and get the camera back. He goes to the old house where they found it in the first place, but it’s not there; the house has been torn down. There’s a boy there who tells Greg where the camera is and agrees to let Greg borrow it. Somehow in the middle of everything else, Greg gets his picture taken with the camera and it looks like a negative and he’s gigantic. He continues to get gigantic and his teacher isn’t at school that day. What’s going to happen to Greg? Will he ever get rid of that F?

What I liked

Again, R.L. does a good job of continuing a story without having it be out of left field. I think this continuation fits.

What I didn’t like

Why is Greg stupid enough to tell a story that no one would believe? Look, there are times when you tell people the things that happened to you, even if they don’t believe at first. Those things are times like, “Hey, good-upstanding-keys-to-the-city-for-saving-a-drowning-puppy person touched me inappropriately.” The times you don’t tell your experiences to other people are something like Greg’s experience. If some guy came up to me and said, “Hey, I found this evil camera,” I would think he was full of it. Nobody would believe it.

Maybe the thing really happened, but there is a point when you trade off sharing your story versus having people think you’re bananas. People generally don’t believe stories from other people that are about inexplicable things. “Hey, I saw a ghost,” might get you believed by some people. “Hey, I saw a UFO,” will get you believed by a few and people will think you’re one of those crazy UFO-believing, conspiracy theorists.

If it’s something illegal, you tell other people about it, even if they don’t believe you at first. If it’s about that time you, for sure, saw Bigfoot in the woods, you might have to keep it to yourself if you want people to look upon you credibly. It’s kind of sad that we have to filter what we can tell the world depending on if our situations are believable or not. If it really happened we should be able to talk about it.

You can choose to tell people anyway, not taking into account whether anyone will believe you, and maybe it will turn out ok. Greg may have been able to tell someone else all about the evil camera and just have them be like, “Oh, that’s awful! I’m so glad you’re safe now!”

Overall

Couldn’t Greg have just talked about that time he went to a water park?

Weigh In

Have you had something happen to you, that was really weird, and when you told people they didn’t believe you?

Do you think people are generally scared to tell society about things that happened to them because the other people will not believe?

#992 Say Cheese and Die Again by R.L. Stine was originally published on One-elevenbooks

#990 The Haunted Mask II by R.L. Stine

The Haunted Mask II by R.L. Stine

Steve made the wrong choice when he chose to coach the six-year olds’ soccer team. They’re awful. They’re hellions wearing the clothes of small people instead of actual children, not really, they’re just children, very bratty children. Steve determines that he really wants to scare them for Halloween. He remembered that Carly Beth had a really scary mask last Halloween, so he asks her where she got it, but she’s reluctant to tell.

When Steve finally finds out where the mask came from, he goes and gets one, by nefarious means, only to find out that he can’t take the mask off. He feels and sounds like an old man and people aren’t scared of him at all. He has to ask Carly Beth about getting the mask off. She tries what she knows, but maybe this mask is different. Maybe they should go back to the party store.

What I liked

I liked that R.L. was able to continue this story without having it get too crazy and unbelievable, if you can believe in a haunted mask in the first place. Knowing the original story, none of what happens is too far from the events that made the first story possible. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, essentially, I’m saying that this book fits in the world of The Haunted Mask and the reader doesn’t feel like the author is reaching for extreme ideas to continue the story.

What I didn’t like

I don’t feel like this story has the same moral as the last story. Steve does become another person while wearing the mask, but he doesn’t necessarily have different motivations. He does feel different. He essentially steps into someone else’s shoes. He learns what it’s like to be an old man and scaring small children soon ends up at the bottom of his list of things to do. Maybe Steve learned that things that once seemed important, are not important at all. He wanted to be petty, but when he put himself in the shoes of someone else, he saw that it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Sometimes, we just need a change of perspective.

Overall

Don’t put on weird masks you find in basements. I feel as if I’ve said this more than once and I shouldn’t have to.

Weigh In

Have you ever had a moment where something you thought you cared a lot about became not a big deal when you thought of it from another person’s point of view?

Would you put on some random mask you found in a creepy basement?

#990 The Haunted Mask II by R.L. Stine was originally published on One-elevenbooks

#989 The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

One day a child gets an offer he doesn’t want to refuse. He is offered two goldfish, but he doesn’t want to trade his action figures or any of that for the goldfish. He finally decides he does have something to trade–his dad. So he swaps his dad for the goldfish, but when his mother gets home, she’s not happy at all about this whole thing. So he has to go track down the kid he traded his dad to, but that kid had already traded the dad to someone else. In turn the next kid had traded the dad for something else.

This goes on for a while, until the boy finally finds his dad and figures his dad is a pretty good dad after all and he shouldn’t have traded him for two goldfish.

What I liked

This was rather short, but it was be Neil Gaiman, so I kind of had to read it.

This story is built on cascading actions, which is a thing in children’s tales or nursery rhymes. Actually, you might even say it’s like completing a string of side quests. One action, ends up leading to another action, which leads to other actions. It’s all very the-old-woman-who-swallowed-the-fly.

In truth, this is how real life works. Our actions, no matter how small, have consequences. While these types of stories are outlandish, they do help us come to realize that our actions have subsequent effects.

Sure, someone could trade their dad, but their mother isn’t going to be happy about it and they might miss their dad, nor will their dad stay at the place he was left.

What I didn’t like

This was a fun story.

Overall

Actions have consequences, especially if you trade your dad for two goldfish.

Weigh In

Is there something you would swap a parent for?

Was there a specific series of consequences that made you more careful of your actions in the future?

#989 The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean was originally published on One-elevenbooks