Six Book Series to Read if You Like Goosebumps

The success of Goosebumps spawned a lot of similar series when it first came out, and it’s also helped inspire a new generation of middle grade authors to write there own series. I know that it’s monster of the week style has inspired my own work even though I don’t write for young audiences. And for those of you like me that are always looking for new books to read and have been bitten by the Goosebumps bug, here are 6 series that I’m sure you’ll love.

1) FrightVision

This is probably the newest series on this list but in my humble opinion it’s the best one in terms of capturing what made the original Goosebumps so good and making it their own thing. Created by author Culliver Crantz Frightvision describes itself as Goosebumps meets Stranger Things, and just like Goosebumps does with Scholastics they do presentations in schools as well make a point to sell to educators.

2) Spinetinglers Series

Spinetinglers was released in the 1990's based on the success of Goosebumps around that time. The series is made up of 30 standalone books, and written by multiple authors all under the pseudonym of M.T. Coffin.

The two most memorable of the series to me was The Monster Channel in which an old television has the power to release monsters into the world, and Camp Crocodile, in which a crocodile begins to target children at a summer camp.

3) Bone Chillers

This is probably the series most like Goosebumps but also gives off some major Spooksville vibes as well. There are 23 books in the series some follow a new character each time while others use characters form past books.

Much like Spooksville and Fear Street it all focuses around one location that has lots of weird occurrences. The series while mostly written by Betsy Haynes who created it, also included entries by other authors. Bonechillers was also released in French but stopped at book 15.

Also, like Goosebumps there was a television show produced based on the series which featured a cast of returning characters through each episode. The series was released in 1996, aired 13 episodes and ran for only a single season. And like Goosebumps the author was in every episode, however instead of the beginning Betsy Haynes would appear at the end to encourage children to use their imagination more.

Only 6 of the 13 episodes were released on VHS in 1997 and no DVD copies were ever made.

4) Deadtime Stories

Deadtime Stories was published in 1996 and ran for 17 books and were written by Gina and Annette Cascone. The series featured some original scares not seen in other series such as use of Ouija boards and even evil fairies.

Deadtime series also benefitted from the resurgence of scary shows for kids when in 2012 Nickelodeon released a television version of the series which ran for 11 episodes. The series was reminiscent of another Nickelodeon horror series Are You Afraid of the Dark? in the way that each episode opened with someone telling the story of the episode. In this case it was a babysitter.

5) Shivers Series

Shivers is one of the longer series and has 36 books in total. All written by M.D. Spenser an international journalist. The series was published between 1996 and 1998 unlike some of the other series Shivers began to see new life as the series was republished in eBook form. And like Goosebumps, Shivers at it's height sold millions of copies worldwide.

6) Strange Matter Series

Also, a long series Strange Matter ran for 37 books and was created by Mary M. Engle and Johnny Ray Barnes Jr. It takes place in the fictional town of Farifield and centers around a new protagonists in every book. Much like the Fearstreet books but for younger readers.

The series ran from 1995 through 1997 and was cancelled before the final five installments could be published.

One interesting note was that there was a spin-off mini-series of books called Strange Forces which followed several characters from the first 10 books. Four books were released in the series which was supposed to span eight total books but they were cancelled before publication.