The Secret Path

Spooksville appears to have been Christopher Pike's response to the Goosebumps phenomenon. Fitting, as Pike and Stine were rival YA horror writers since the mid '80s. In fact, it's because an editor had a fight with Pike that she urged the easy-going Stine to turn away from joke books and write YA horror. Stine, famous for saying 'yes' to everything, took up the challenge. He studied what was popular--Including Pike--and wrote the bestseller Blind Date (1986). He's been scary ever since.<br /><br />Spooksville is not a complete Goosebumps knock-off, though. It's unique because of the reoccurring characters and having more mature creepy situations. For example, we encounter kids whose eyes have been cut out by a wicked witch. This isn't to say it's all grim and serious, though. The characters are funny and there's a cloak of humor even in the direst of circumstances. It's a shame I missed this series in the '90s because I probably would have loved it. Even now, it's pretty awesome.<br /><br />Recently the first 12 books have been re-printed and given stellar audiobook versions. I'm doing the audio and breezed through the first book in a day. Already on to the 2nd! Highly recommended.

“Listen to Mr. Realist,” Sally mocked. “He doesn’t believe in ghosts even though a tree almost ate him an hour ago.”<br /><br /><br />During the ‘80s and ‘90s Christopher Pike wrote some really good books for young adults, and also for much younger kids. The Spooksville series is aimed at the later. His young adult books were marked by some good writing, and his content appealed to teenagers who were a bit more mature than the average young adult. Here, Pike began a marvelously fun series for pre-teen kids which has a great deal of charm and humor mixed in with the spookiness.<br /><br />Parents need not worry — at least with the first entry — about it being too dark. This is miles milder than Harry Potter, just to give you a reference point. Pike sets a swift pace and while young children will be enthralled with all the wild and weird aspects of Springville/Spooksville, and there is some mild danger, the tone has a fun bend to it. Children will sense that their pint-sized heroes are going to be okay — this is a series, after all — which allows them to enjoy the thrills without taking them “too” seriously.<br /><br />The Secret Path begins the series, as twelve-year-old Adam Freeman has just moved to Springville. The opening scene helping his dad unload the moving fan is charming, immediately endearing the reader — young or old — to Adam and the setting. Adam has just moved to Springville from Kansas City, and when his dad sends him to the local store for a six-pack of Coke he meets the tall-for-her-age and precocious Sally Wilcox. She is immediately smitten with Adam and it’s quite charming how Pike writes the kids and the way they interact. Sally explains to Adam about the town, and all the weird things that happen in Spooksville. When a skeptical Adam asks Sally how long she’s lived here, he gets this response:<br /><br />“Twelve years. All my life. I’m one of the lucky ones.” — Sally<br /><br />“You mean, it’s really neat living in Springville?” — Adam<br /><br />“No. I mean I’m lucky to be alive still. Not all kids last twelve years in Spooksville.” — Sally<br /><br />Despite the ominous tone, Pike injects a lot of humor into the story, most notably through the interactions of Adam, Sally, and Watch. Even as an adult, I found myself laughing several times at their dialog, which rang true for nice kids this age. Apparently the town was founded long ago by a witch named Madeline Templeton. She is related to Ann Templeton, who lives in a castle and may have a small hold on Adam.<br /><br />Adam’s trip to the market quickly turns into a quest by the trio of friends to find the secret path. Following the riddle given them by Bum, their search to discover the alternate Spooksvilles take them to the blooded tree, and of course, the cemetery. It really gets fun when the trio become separated. Can they escape a black knight and live skeletons? There is a dungeon, and some neat stuff with an hourglass before it’s all over, or perhaps just beginning.<br /><br />This is the start for Adam, Sally and Watch, and it’s sweetly done, moving quickly so that a child in the 8-12 age range won’t be bored. It may in fact seem tame to children at the older end of that range, considering all that’s been published since Harry Potter, but I feel that’s part of its charm. Despite the weirdness and the crazy supernatural elements, there is almost a retro feel to this series — yet not so retro that today’s kids won’t enjoy it. I enjoyed Spooksville even as an adult reader, and think a lot of kids will love this. I’ll be going through the series, and The Howling Ghost is the next one on my list. Great fun.<br /><br />“Just another day in Spooksville. You’ll get used to Sundays like this.” — Sally<br /><br />“I hope not.” — Adam

THIS WHOLE SERIES MAKES UP MY CHILDHOOD. zOMG<br /><br />I think I started to love reading after I finished one Spooksville books to another. I was in 2nd grade.<br /><br />After a few years, I pretty much forgot about this series. When I came back to it, I thought I might not like it as much as I did before because my reading tastes have really grown then. But nope! I re-read through them all and I still find myself falling in love with Sally's clever and often time funny witty retorts, Cindy's kind gentleness, and Watch's brilliance. These are the characters that have never truly left my side even as I grow up.<br /><br />I love Ann Templeton, I love how the books twist and turn questioning me whether she's a good or bad witch. I love the monsters, I love how Pike humanize them and let us see why they were *bad* in the first place.<br /><br />I love... simply everything about this series.

So I hadn't heard about this writer and this book series before, but I have to say that I loved this book. I read it on an afternoon when I had nothing to do and from the start I could not let it go. I had to know how it would end. A fun, exiting read.

I’ve been looking for the Spooksville series at garage sales and thrift stores for years without ever coming across a single one, even though that’s how I procured most of my Pike collection. It was a lovely surprise gift for Christmas (I didn’t even ask? Apparently, companions just listen when I talk. &lt;3), and I could hardly wait to get started. I’m familiar with the world and the characters from the Spooksville (2013) TV series when it ran on Netflix, and I’m disappointed I won’t be able to watch it alongside the novels. It’s a well-casted and underrated kids horror show, and I’m sure I would have watched it alongside Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990) and Goosebumps (1995) if it had been around back then. (The horror-love goes back a long, long way.) Trigger warnings: minor body/eye horror.<br /><br />Adam isn’t thrilled to be moving to Springville, a small, sleepy coastal town, and he’s even less thrilled to learn that the local kids refer to it as Spooksville. Strange things seem to happen there, and children often go missing. When Adam meets Sally and Watch, he’s persuaded to help them look for the Secret Path–a path that leads to the Spooksvilles of other dimensions–but they may get more than they bargained for.<br /><br />This is a delightful piece of middle grade fiction, and I would have loved it growing up. Even as an adult, I’m having a hard time pausing between books long enough to write reviews; I just want to binge them all. Like most Pike books, the concept is similar to a lot of other stories, but he brings his own twists to it so that it doesn’t read quite like anything else. He’s also up to his usual genre-blending tricks, since the alternate dimension Spooksvilles are pure science fiction. The concept is never above middle grade level though, and the novel is more solidly in the horror genre. The alternate Spooksville they discover is fairly terrifying, home to a witch who steals body parts from children to make dolls. The on-page body horror is minimal (it is a book for kids, after all), but the concept is creepy enough all by itself.<br /><br />The characters are enjoyable and surprisingly three-dimensional for a novel that’s barely over a hundred pages. Adam is the archetypal narrator, a classic hero in the style of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. He’s sometimes sassy and often clueless, but you can always count on him to be good. Watch is the brains of the operation, the one who figures out the clues and (so far) is the first in trouble. Naturally, because it’s a Pike book, Sally outshines them all. He seems to enjoy writing about powerful women more than anything. She’s fast-talking, sarcastic, and brave, and more importantly, she’s never sidelined in favor of the boys. Sally does the saving rather than needing to be saved.<br /><br />The dialogue is occasionally clunky, which is another Pike characteristic. Sometimes, the kids just don’t talk like kids. Plot-wise, the book has a little of everything. It doesn’t linger long on introducing the town or characters, instead launching right into the search for the Secret Path. There’s a fun riddle to decode, a witch with a prophecy, and an alternate dimension full of scary things– ax-wielding animated knights, giant spiders, kids missing body parts, and a frightful witch who I suspect will be making repeat appearances. The end circumstances are rather dire, and I’d have been worried about the trio if this wasn’t a middle grade novel. It’s a great introduction to the series.

The Spooksville books by Christopher Pike were the books that got me into reading when I was younger. They have a definite soft spot in my heart. I even reread a few every year - they're kids books for sure but I still love them.

I read when I was still a kid. I almost forgot what the plot is but I still know who the characters are. I'm trying to find a copy of the series because I already gave my copies to my cousin and she lives far away from us. Sad to say, even Amazon doesn't have a brand new copy of these books. I miss Sally, Cindy, Watch and Adam (sigh!).

My first Christopher Pike and I. LOVED. it. If only I would've discovered him when I was younger!

Lectura ligera, entretiene. Lo agarré más que nada por una cuestión de nostalgia. Este libro, junto con otros de la saga, lo leí de cuando era chico y me dio ganas de volver a sumergirme en esta historia.

So even though I loved Pike's non-series books when I was younger, I had never heard of this series. That probably has something to do with the fact that I was too busy devouring Goosebumps and, later on, Fear Street books to really look for other horror series. But when a TV show was added to Netflix this past week, and it said it was based on a book series by Pike, I actually shrieked with joy! Super excited to see if it was worth my time. Well, I think these books are more for ages 9-12, at least if they're all like this one. But I've been enjoying the TV show a lot, it seems to be a less cheesy/dated version of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" or "Goosebumps." Might read a couple more, just to see what happens next, &amp; compare the differences between the book(s) and the show.<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1440704427ra/16012457.gif" width="500" height="144" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy">