The Spooksville series was one of my favorites as a kid. I was a huge Goosebumps collector, but I think deep down I liked this series more. For the Halloween season this year I thought I’d revisit an old favorite and see if it was as good as I remember. Unfortunately, it wasn’t- it was actually kinda bad. 

We meet our protagonist Adam who recently moved to Springville. At the local ice cream shop he meets Sally, a tall, skinny, and beautiful girl. Within the first couple exchanges she starts flirting with him in such a ham-fisted way it immediately put me off it. There’s no subtlety, no build up. Just a greeting and oh hey, I think I love you. Our guy Adam’s response? A sheepish “thanks.” She’s lived in town her whole life and it’s her who informs Adam that locals call it “Spooksville” on account of all the weird things that happen. She has a huge crush on Adam and is apparently too young to process it because she spends the entire series teasing and bullying him. It started to grate on me and I found myself wishing she’d shut up. I don’t remember the romantic side of this series, but I did have a crush on the girl next door so maybe I related to this back then?

Sally introduces Adam to Watch, the other member of the gang. Watch’s family is split up around the country in different time zones so he wears multiple watches to keep track, hence his nickname. A character quirk I tried emulating once or twice as a kid.

The gang goes through a series of adventures for this volume of the first 3 books of the series. The first book is a fast paced romp through a secret portal, a dangerous castle, and encounters with a witch and an evil knight.  In the second book we meet Cindy and try to save her captured brother from a ghost in a lighthouse. She becomes the 4th member of the gang and another gushing fawn over our boy Adam. Sally and Cindy spend the next 2 books bickering and fighting over Adam. In the 3rd book they investigate a haunted cave. Why? Because it sounded interesting. That was not an exaggeration. In fact, they’ll complain they had no reason to go in when they eventually become trapped and lost.

Compared to Goosebumps which were almost all isolated stories, Spooksville featured a cast of recurring characters. I remember liking how real the characters felt and how they would realistically debate their next move together. I remember how they would grow and change over the course of the series. Keep in mind I was borrowing whatever books in the series that were available in the library, which could have been in any order. But I’m not going to read any more in the series to find out. There’s much better kids books out there.