• Home
  • Poetry Prompts
  • For Writers
  • Daily Poem-Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Free Stuff + BOOKS
  • Patron Love

Children’s Book Club: ‘Just Beyond: The Scare School’

By Megan Willome 2 Comments

R.L. StineAs a child, I did not like scary stories. I was that super-sensitive girl who had nightmares from fairy tale filmstrips. But there are a lot of non-Megan kids who enjoy being scared. I’m glad I’m a little braver now, because I missed all the books by R.L. Stine. (Twitter bio: “My job: to terrify kids.”) It’s clear that this author, who has sold more than 400 million books, is having so much fun. Which is to be expected for someone who once wrote under the pen name Jovial Bob Stine.

He said that his favorite fan letter ever was: “Dear R.L. Stine. I have read 40 of your books and I think they are really boring.”
R.L. Stine
Stine is the author of the Goosebumps series, for younger kids, the Fear Street series, for older ones, plus a couple of spooky picture books. This new graphic novel series, Just Beyond, of which The Scare School is the first, falls squarely in the middle-grade range.

Graphic novels allow for experimentation. In this book some panels are vertical, some horizontal, some zig-zag. My favorite is a page that is almost entirely white, to show us that our heroes have entered a new dimension. There is an austere school building behind them, and the one line of text says simply, “OMG.” No other panel in the book looks like this one, and the sudden whiteness is worthy of that dramatic exclamation.

The story has strong Stranger Things vibes. There is a group of kids from our world and a big ugly monster (although this one is partly mechanical). When Marco says, “I love happy endings, don’t you?” and there is still a page to go, it’s clear there will be no happy ending yet. Welcome to the cliffhanger: time to buy the next book.

In graduate school I was the TA for a freshman lit class that focused on horror. We used the guideline that horror is the difference between what we expect and what actually is. That’s a nice, broad description that includes everything from a scary school to the 2020 we were expecting on New Year’s Eve and the one we actually got. Instead of asking, How do you face a pandemic, Stine instead asks, How do you face evil drogg monsters? For both you need bravery, cleverness, and loyal friends. (A dog named Lucky also helps.)

Now that I can enjoy an occasional spooky story, I usually read something scary in October. The truth is that I don’t know what monsters I’ll have to face or what will finally defeat them. But I’ll go there with Jovial Bob Stine, who doesn’t take his scares too seriously. Describing his apartment-based office, he says this:

And I do have some creepy atmosphere — a life-sized skeleton, some plastic rats, and a cup full of eyeballs. But that’s just in case kids come by.”

The next Children’s Book Club will meet Friday, November 13. We’ll read a picture book by Oge Mora titled Saturday, about how a mother and daughter adapt when weekend plans go awry. They do not stuff their feelings.

Oge Mora

 

Photo by Mark Kao, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.

Browse more Children’s Book Clubs

MW-Joy of Poetry Front cover 367 x 265

“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”

—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro

Buy The Joy of Poetry Now

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Author, Editor at Tweetspeak Poetry
Megan Willome is the author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems. She also writes for the WACOAN magazine, the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post, and Magnolia Journal. When she goes to the library, she always comes home with at least one book for young people. Her day is incomplete without poetry and tea.
Megan Willome
Latest posts by Megan Willome (see all)
  • By Heart: ‘Blessing the Boats’ + New Elizabeth Bishop Challenge - February 26, 2021
  • 50 States of Generosity: New York - February 19, 2021
  • Children’s Book Club: ‘Hello Numbers! What Can You Do?’ - February 12, 2021

Related

❤️✨ Sharing is caring

Filed Under: Children's Authors, Children's Book Club, Children's Stories

About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is the author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems. She also writes for the WACOAN magazine, the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post, and Magnolia Journal. When she goes to the library, she always comes home with at least one book for young people. Her day is incomplete without poetry and tea.

Comments

  1. Sandra Heska King says

    October 13, 2020 at 8:06 pm

    My daughter loved those books. I wasn’t thrilled about her reading them. Of course, I hadn’t, either. I was sure we’d both have nightmares. LO.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      October 14, 2020 at 9:42 am

      I think kids know if they’re ready for Stine’s stories.

      For myself, I can develop nightmares from something I watch, but I never have from something I’ve read, and I’ve read more than a few scary things. The old proverb, “Know thyself,” applies.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our February Menu.

Keep the World Poetic

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world thoughtful and poetic.

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Join the Poetry Club

Join the poetry club, when you become a subscriber to Every Day Poems ✨

The classic—Now a Graphic Novel!

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

Recent Comments

  • Megan Willome on By Heart: ‘Blessing the Boats’ + New Elizabeth Bishop Challenge
  • Sandra Heska King on By Heart: ‘Blessing the Boats’ + New Elizabeth Bishop Challenge
  • The Silver Chair Book Club: Horrible Errors of Childhood | on Difficult Conversations Pod Club: On Being’s “The Art of Peace” with John Paul Lederach
  • The Silver Chair Book Club: The Darkness Around Us Is Deep | on Difficult Conversations Pod Club: On Being’s “The Art of Peace” with John Paul Lederach

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Join Tweetspeak Poetry

Categories

Explore Work From Black Poets

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

Free Printable Poet Bios

Browse all poet bios now

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

About Us

  • • Generous-Annual Theme 2021
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • How to Write Form Poems-Infographics
  • • Poetry Club Tea Date
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Best Love Poetry
  • • Book Club
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Children’s Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Literary Analysis
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • VerseWrights Journal
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library
  • • 50 States Projects

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Give the Gift of Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2021 Tweetspeak Poetry · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · FAQ & Disclosure