The West's Most Potent Legend-maker/Story-teller at the Millenium? - R.L. Stine: Or, Ten Years of the Goosebumps

Abstract

The style of post-modern life might well seem to ensure that most more contemporary stories of the threateningly unfamiliar are conveyed to children by means of the talk in school playgrounds, rather than by their all too busy parents or by their own private reading. Films aimed at younger audiences do, however, still use examples of the most ancient motifs from folklore - particularly as in the innumerable Disney - animated features based on fairy tales, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) to Aladdin (1992), itself the recipient of two Oscars in 1993 - and on again in that studio's productions to the present. Many other imaginative / horror films with perdurable appeal to a range of age groups and societies and equally strong story lines and focus parts of their plats, upon omens, witches, evil spirits, vampires and like unnatural influences. However, the greatest story style influence upon the youthful mind in 'Western' countries is the (style of the ) apparently unfamiliar American writer, R.L. Stine, the author of almost innumerable texts over the last decade and the achiever of what may well be deemed unbelievably large sales in many parts of the English-speaking world. For the Guineas World Records (2000) lists as the best-selling children's series in the history of book publishing the same R.L. Stine's 'Goosebumps' books.