“Calling All Creeps!” by R.L. Stine was published in the winter of 1996. R.L. Stine is well known for his Goosebumps series, a collection of short fiction horror stories. This book is the 50th book in the series out of the 62 originals, each one featuring adventures that take a dark turn. 

The main character in this book is a sixth grader named Ricky. He decides to join the newspaper club because he needs an after school activity credit to move on to the next grade, but Ricky ends up getting kicked out of the club for “causing trouble” when really it was kids that were bullying him into messing up. One of the ways they bullied him was spraying water from a hose onto the camera Tasha gave him for a newspaper article, but Tasha didn’t believe it happened and kicked him out of the club.

Ricky decides to play a prank on the club president, Tasha McClain, because she never believed him and kicked him out even when he tried explaining to her that it wasn’t his fault; The prank was him sneaking into the school to add Tasha’s number at the bottom of the newspaper with the words “Calling all Creeps” next to it.This prank gets out of hand when Tasha finds out at the last second, changing it to Ricky’s number, which causes lizard people to emerge from hiding and reveal their true form. Calling Ricky every night wanting to complete their plan to turn all people into “Creeps” before the identity seeds rot and they can’t complete their mission.

 The Creeps think that Ricky is their leader because they thought he left the note for them to call him, And so they consistently call him for ideas of completing the plan. In the end, Ricky gives up on trying to save everyone because he realizes from the creeps that everyone in the school will have to follow his command and turns himself and everyone else in his middle school into Creeps from the identity seed cookies that they were handing out for free at the school gym for the sale.

I liked this book mainly because of the newspaper club. The newspaper club in the book is very similar to the journalism program at our school. In the book they write stories and report on events going on at school, and then publish the finished project for the school newspaper.

There was one thing in this book though that made it feel rushed. That thing being the ending where they are trying to find a food to put the identity seeds into that everyone would eat. I felt that after the part where they put it into the school’s macaroni everything just started to feel rushed to me. 

One other thing is when The Creeps at the end of the book seemed way to unsuspecting of Ricky especially when he made it clear he didn’t want to go through with the plan to turn the whole school into Creeps. I thought for sure by the second time he made it clear and kept pushing that they didn’t go through with it that the Creeps would catch on that he’s not their real leader, but it took them till the end of the book to question him which didn’t feel right to me.

“Calling All Creeps!” is a short and easy read, so it’s hard to get lost or be confused of what is going on. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a short horror read to buckle down to for just an hour.