The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena (1995) (edit title/settings)

The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena is part of the Goosebump series and written by R L Stein. Sister and brother Nicole and Jordan Blake are sick of the hot Pasadena weather. Their dad who is a photographer often travels to exciting places while they are stuck at home with a sitter, One day he gives them exciting news that he will be taking a trip North to Alaska on a assignment to photograph a creature known as the Abominal Snowman, that is only suppose to exist in legands. Not only that but since the sitter is unavailable they will be joining him on the trip.

Nicole and Jordan are all excited. They REALLY want to see snow. Boy do they ever get their wish. When they get there their tour guide Arthur, this big mountain man, isn’t too friendly and warns them about the dangers of the snow creature. Their dad doesn’t care he has a assignment to do and he isn’t going to rest until he does it. Even the sled dogs seem to be aware of the creature.

So after playing a practical joke, by Jordan fails the dad is agitated and wants them to stick close to the house and not go any where without their back packs in case they get lost. Pretty soon though they get cabin fever, as you can only guess they would, being locked up in a house in nothing but the freezing cold. Some vacation. Personally I would have stayed in Pasadena. Cold and snow’s never been my cup of tea as they will learn soon. They go outside only to find Arthur the tour guide escaping with the dogs and the food. They chase after him. Like they can actually catch him and wind up getting lost.
Nicole falls down a hole and then Jordan jumps down to help her. Or was it the other way around?

The hole turns out to be a underground cave. The underground cave belongs to the snow man. They come face to face with him but he’s encased in this big block of ice. Instead of leaving the damn thing alone and trying to get the hell out the cave pretty soon the ice starts to melt and he breaks lose. Pretty scary. But turns out he just wants trail mix. To this I’m thinking what the HELL! He picks them both up and takes off into the snow. Where he is about to take them is anyone’s guess.. They meet up with one of the sled dogs and he drops them. They make it back to the cabin. Again don’t ask me how.
They find their dad and tell him where the snow man’s cave is.

Stupid! Stupid! People. Of course at first the dad doesn’t believe it so they lead him to the cave. But NOOO he isn’t satisfied with just seeing it. He climbs inside. The monster is there again back in the ice block. Does he just take pictures of the thing and leave it at that? No he gets this “brilliant” idea to take the creature back home with him.. Let me save this rant till my conclusion though. So at first you think the radio is gone and they’re stuck there but they find it. He packs the thing in a trunk and the kids stick in some snow balls and they head back home.

Back home the creature is living in his dark room and he’s trying to figure out what to do with it. The kids are playing with a neighbor. Lets call her Lesley. Dad is about to go to a meeting to decide about the snow man and tells the kids not to go near the dark room. Lesley hears them and taunts them and they decide to show her the creature. They do and while they do they get out the two snow balls but something happens when they hit Lesley everything the snow touches freezes over.. This includes Nicole when Lesley throws one at her.

So now Nicole is frozen like the snowman. Nothing and no amount of heat seems to be able to un thaw her. Jordan decides to enlist the help of the snow man. He decides to give it some trail mix which at first seems really odd but turns out when he does give it some he squeezes Nicole and all the ice melts off her. Then he goes outside and rolls around in the snow and it clings to him. But then he runs away. I guess in order to find some place more cold. They decide to bury the other two snowballs underground.

Dad tries to act like he’s cool about the whole thing. The money for the pictures will be enough. He’s just glad their okay. Nicole and Jordan see the bully twins out the window digging up the snow balls and about to throw them at each other. End of the book.

Man I think this was the stupidest Goose bump book I’ve read to date. Where do I even begin? How about how idiotic it is to go looking for a snow creature in Alaska. Then finding it and coming face to face with it in a ice tomb and not stopping at taking it’s picture. Then how the hell does one lock up a an abominable snow man in a trunk and fly it on a plane back to Pasadena? It must have been a private plane because I don’t think Delta Air lines or no other one I know would let you ship a big hairy butt creature in a trunk. Don’t they do luggage check? Can you imagine the look on their faces when they open that trunk out and see that thing? Jordan and Nicole’s dad would have been good and locked up. What the hell was he thinking or smoking? Then “trail mix”.
What was that all about? The whole thing about it being in the tomb and then escaping and then getting back in confused the hell outta me. So is that all you have to do to get it to bust out is give it some trail mix? What if you’re out? I can’t decide whether I like the creature or not because of all the characters in this weird story it had the most sense. All it really wanted to do was be in the cold weather and eat trail mix. The ending was totally insane. The snow balls weren’t even that dangerous.. They got snow everywhere but I really don’t think that was cause for the dramatics of yelling out NOOO at the end.
I mean maybe I’m the only one who saw this but maybe they could have lured the snow man back WITH the snow balls.. Then dad was just a little TOO cool. I mean COME ON! You do all that to get this creature and your kids run him off into the sun set. If I was the parent I probably would haven’t wanted to beat their behinds… This book I will give like four stars and that’s being nice. Trust me this one… I’m just shaking my head..