Item - Trapped in Bat Wing Hall

This is the most straightforward, Choose Your Own Adventure-like book so far in the series as far as gameplay goes. In every other respect, it's fairly typical.

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This is a pretty fun book, not to mention it is also one of the more memorable ones for me. There is a clear division between the two stories and each one makes for an entertaining read. Something I noticed with some of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books in relation to the stories is that, at times, there is an unequal distribution in terms of stories and length; many books focus on one main storyline with a sub, almost mini-story aside from it, while other books will have two separate storylines, but with the main focus still on one of the stories. With this book, I feel this is not the case. Each story has an adequate length to feel separate from the other story.

As a kid, the imagery this book had ingrained in my brain was great. Rereading it as an adult, it is still just as great. In terms of writing style, this book felt more like the first book, Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, than it did the second book, Tick Tock, You're Dead. It really is hard to say if R. L. Stine wrote this one. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but given the somewhat inconsistent writing style within the series, it is hard to predict which of the books he actually wrote and which ones were ghost-written by other authors. Nevertheless, this book is great and I definitely recommend it to anyone looking to give this series a shot.

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If anyone has experience writing about neighborhood kids who turn out to be spooks, it's R. L. Stine. Trapped in Bat Wing Hall doesn't perform at the same high level as Welcome to Dead House or The Ghost Next Door from original Goosebumps, but the author acquits himself well. Moving to a new town has been tough. No one shows interest in you, but one afternoon walking home from school you meet a boy named Nick. He invites you to the Horror Club, where he and a few kids get together in reputedly haunted Bat Wing Hall, once owned by notorious Professor Krupnik, and tell scary stories. There are five other kids at the meeting; some seem weird but others are nice. This week, instead of scary stories, there will be a scavenger hunt. Will you join the Red Team, which includes Nick, or introduce yourself to new kids on the Blue Team?

A foul-smelling boy—Connor—and a twitchy girl named Debbie fill out the Red Team. You are assigned to hunt for the list of scavenger items inside the mansion, but soon learn your teammates are monsters in disguise who intend to lock you in Bat Wing Hall forever unless you complete the scavenger hunt by midnight. In the kitchen is a human skeleton that has the finger bone you need for the scavenger list. You spot a living mummy; a bandage from it is another of the items you need. When the mummy dozes beside its ornate case, you can try to rip off a bandage, but may get transported to Ancient Egypt in the court of King Ra-ma-la-ma. Hide from his soldiers in a mummy case, and you'll be sent back to Bat Wing Hall. Having snatched a mummy bandage, you might climb to the attic, where a witch is captive. If you release her will she give you a straw from her broom, another scavenger item? The final thing to collect is three werewolf hairs. The witch claims such a beast is in the basement, but you'll be lucky to live through the three-story plunge, with only seconds before midnight. Nick, Debbie, and Connor are poised to change you into a monster, but be bold and wise and you'll fashion a worthy fairytale ending. Perhaps you never saw the attic, and instead found your teammates playing a video game, Mud Monsters. Can you trick them into playing against you, with your freedom as the prize? Play the best game of your life and you'll walk out the door still human.

On the Blue Team you're joined by pretty Lara, spunky Marcie, and muscle-bound Martin. You're assigned to scavenger hunt outside, and your teammates make you search the cemetery. There it is: Krupnik Crypt, where the professor who owned Bat Wing Hall is laid to rest. An eerie warning on the door doesn't bother you, but when you exit the crypt all the Horror Club members are gone. You head home, but awaken in the night transformed as a winged bat. The warning on the crypt decreed he who opens the door will "grow bat bones", and the curse was genuine. Fly to the crypt, and you enter a narrow, deep crack in the floor before ending up at the Monster Library, where there is no happy ending. If you waited until morning to return to the cemetery, you've reverted to human form, but sunlight blisters your skin. You're still partly bat; when it's dark you take on full bat form again. Do your teammates have a solution? If you wait until you're human, pack on layers of clothes to preserve your skin, and meet Lara, Marcie, and Martin at the mall, you can try to convince them of your predicament. You'll have to prove it by morphing into a bat, but if they reopen Krupnik Crypt, you might turn permanently human. If on the way to meet your friends you ran into the ghost of Professor Krupnik, you get roped into a plot to expel the Horror Club from his home. Maybe you can arrive at a compromise, one that restores your human form and resolves Krupnik's tortured past in a surprisingly pleasant manner.

Trapped in Bat Wing Hall is the best of Give Yourself Goosebumps to this early point in the series. Hitting an optimal ending is a fun challenge, and a couple of the longer narrative threads are as satisfying as anything in this series. The journey with the witch and werewolf that lands you in the basement for the finale has a whimsical emotional ending that feels deeply earned. Invest some time traversing this book's many crisscrossing paths, and I think you'll be caught off guard by its quality.

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