31 Days of Goosebumps - Book 60. Werewolf Skin

Book 60: Werewolf Skin

So this book appeared on a lot of “Best Goosebumps Book” lists and I have to agree. Beyond the fact that it’s a fun little werewolf story (which there aren’t nearly enough of in the Goosebumps Series) it also has possibly my favorite book cover of the 62 books.

The story follows Alex Hunter who is visit his Aunt and Uncle in Wolf Creek while his parents are in France. He’s warned to avoid the neighbor’s house (The Marlings) at all costs. 

Everyone is school tells him that his neighbors are in fact werewolves at first he doesn’t believe it but soon he decides to spy on them at night and get a picture of them as evidence. Despite his desperate attempt to get his friend Hannah to join him he spies from a distance alone.

That night he sees two people climb out of the window and put on wolf skin and immediately transform. He follows the two wolves all night and when daylight comes the wolves shed their skin revealing themselves to be Alex’s aunt and uncle.

Alex and Hannah decide that if they steal the werewolf skins then his aunt and uncle won’t be able to transform and thus will be cured. The plan works and they all celebrate. However when Alex returns to the old house to return the wolf skins he finds one already there. At this point Hannah reveals that she became a werewolf the night prior and bites Alex.

THE BAD: This ending bothers me for two reasons. One is that I can’t figure out when Hannah got bitten the previous night since (a) she refuses to go out and night and (b) Alex followed his aunt and uncle that night and never saw them attack anyone. The other issue is that if one of the werewolf skins was still in the house why didn’t either one of his relatives wear it? It seems to imply that you MUST put on the werewolf skin driven by unknown force. If they could just CHOOSE to not wear it than they should have been cured pretty quickly.

THE GOOD: Despite that long “Bad” paragraph... that’s all inspired by the last 6 paragraphs. The rest of this story is amazing. Then again I’m bias as I love werewolf stories.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  This didn’t need to be an hour but it was a decent adaptation. They definitely seemed to have agreed with too many plot holes in the book ending. While Hannah is still a werewolf in the end the discovery is done differently, I prefer it.