How to Kill a Monster (edit title/settings)

How to Kill a Monster is written by R.L Stein and part of the Goosebump series. In this book Gretchen and her stepbrother Clark are dropped off at their grandparent’s house for the weekend, while their parents take a trip. Not only are their grand parents a little eccentric but they live slap in the middle of a swamp.

Halfway there the car goes over a bridge and gets stuck. Clark who is all into comics thinks that there are swamp monsters in the moat. Little does he know. When they get to grandma and grandpa’s house, which is something like a castle, they are greeted warmly. Grandma and Grandpa don’t get a lot of company. Their dog immediately gets a strange feeling about the place and begins to howl non stop.

The next day the parent’s leave for their trip. Gretchen and Clark think it’s a little weird that Grandma cooks SO many plates of blueberry pancakes. It doesn’t help when Gretchen catches Grandpa going upstairs with a big plate. After breakfast they explore the house some more and outside. The Grandparents tell them they can look everywhere in the house but there is a room on the third floor that is locked.

After exploring one room full of boxes and newspapers, and magazines they get a little bored. The only other interesting room is one with a piano in it. Clark decides to make things interesting and runs off so Gretchen will have to find him. When looking she comes across a part of the hallway that has no floor, due to rotting. It has collapsed. She also comes across the room with the silver key in the door that the grandparents told them not to open. Of course you know she has to open it.

Inside the room is a big hideous monster. She finds Clark and they try to go to their grandparents for help. By this time the Grandparents have got ghost. They have locked all the exits and the kids inside the house with the monster. They have left a letter that tells them about the monster living in the room, and that they have gone to town for help, Whatever they do don’t let the monster out the room. Uh yeah. Too alte for that.
They also leave another letter.

The monster finds them and they try several ways to kill it. One they lead it to the floor that part of the hall is gone and for a moment it looks like they succeed. The monster falls through the hole. But it doesn’t die. Two they lead it to the kitchen and find one of grand mom’s Rhubarb pies on the counter. They have the brilliant idea to fill it with rat poisons and other chemical they find in the cupboard. The monster eats the pie and falls over. When trying to get out though another door they look up and are staring the monster right in the eyes again. The monster goes to lick Gretchen and surprisingly it can talk. Turns out it’s allergic to humans and it falls over and dies. This time for real.

Gretchen and Clark get out the house and run through the swamp in order to get to town and call their parents. Gretchen wants to know what the other letter says. It tells them NOT to go through the swamp. The other brothers and sisters of the swamp monster might be looking for revenge.

I give this book five stars (C) It really wasn’t one of my favorite Goose-bump books. It might sound horrible to say but the grandparents told them SPECIFICALLY to STAY OUT THE ROOM! But they went looking in the room anyway. What is it about telling someone NOT to do something that makes them that much more curious to wanna do it anyway. Then what kind of grandparents would leave their two grand kids locked up in a house with a hideous monster? Shouldn’t they have taken the kids WITH them? YEAH cause you didn’t exactly give them a lot of help in trying to kill the monster. I think that their ideas were pretty good though. Just thought the ending wasn’t good. It was just too simple. This one really didn’t do anything for me.