Night Of The Living Dummy II (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
The heavy fist hit me square in the forehead.My face felt as if it had exploded. Pain shot down my body.Everything went bright red.And, holding both sides of my head, I crumpled to the floor.This book contains some of the best writing I've seen from Goosebumps. Stine actually takes the time to set up a plot and characters. Also, he's working with what is perhaps the scariest Goosebumps invention: Slappy, the living dummy....Amy Kramer is 12, and has a pretty crazy family. Her dad is a bald ex-hippie who thinks he can sing (he's tone deaf) and is under the impression that he is a master of Chinese cooking (he's terrible). He also insists that the family sit down together every Thursday night for "Family Sharing Night," which is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Everyone in the family has to do a show-and-tell. Amy's mom is a chubby woman who works in a fancy women's clothes store in the city. Amy has two siblings: - An older sister (age 14) named Sara who is a straight A student and a wonderful painter. She tends to be a little full of herself. - A younger brother (age 10) named Jed. This little redheaded brat goes around vandalizing Sara's paintings and making fun of both his siblings. He's unpleasant, spoiled, and thinks he's cute and funny.The fact that I can even make character descriptions of this family is a sign that Stine is working at a higher level than normal here. Stine spends a whole 4 chapters of introducing them before Slappy even appears.Amy is a cool kid who loves Bob Marley and reggae music. (Her best friend Margo listens exclusively to The Beatles. Stine is great at giving kids some cool quirks.) She collects seashells. She also has the unfortunate hobby of ventriloquism, which negates any coolness previously established. LOL She has an old, worn-out dummy named Dennis who is falling apart and frequently loses his head - literally. She has been bugging her father to get her a new dummy, but new dummies are expensive.However, one day her father comes home with Slappy - a dummy that the store owner seemed eager to get rid of, for some reason. Amy is very excited with the new doll and thanks her father. Then Slappy slaps her father hard across the face.It's begun! Slappy does horrible things, and Amy is blamed for them. When she sits down to act with him, he calls her mom fat and makes fun of her dad's bald head. At one point he grabs onto a three-year-old girl's hand and almost breaks it. Amy is in tears trying to explain that she's not the one doing these hateful things, but of course no one believes her.Then Slappy starts sneaking out of her room at night and vandalizing her house. Her parents start to talk about taking her to a psychiatrist, and she is very ostracized by her family.I feel like this is genuine and true horror. Hateful acts are being done against your loved ones and everyone thinks you are responsible. No one believes your protests and denials. Then you are lined up to perhaps end up in an institution because people think you've lost your mind. It's creepy stuff.Then, things get even creepier and more physical when Slappy starts to talk to Amy. He calls her his slave and demands that she obey his every command, or else he'll continue his stealth attacks on her family.No matter how many times Slappy pulls this "I am your master" crap on children, he never fails to be surprised when they don't meekly become his slaves. The children always decide to fight back! Slappy is a moron. Anyway, fighting with a dummy is seriously creepy. He packs a powerful punch and is surprisingly strong. Images like this - a dummy grabbing your wrist hard, slapping you in the face, scurrying and slithering across your bedroom floor with an evil grin on his face - are truly terrifying and stick with you.(view spoiler)[Dennis, Amy's broken-down dummy, comes alive at the end and defeats the evil Slappy. Slappy's head is split in two and a giant white worm crawls out and vanishes into a crack in the wall. DISGUSTING. Great ending, though. (hide spoiler)]
This was an okay sequel, I guess.I actually read this book in fifth grade with that three books in one book.I felt sorry for Amy, when Slappy spilt the paint on the floor, but she was told that her parents and siblings didn't believe her when she went in her sister's room for markers and her name being scrawled all over her sister's walls. Her parents talk of taking her to therapy, which is what happens when your parents and siblings don't believe her, because all evidence points out to her.But Slappy gets his head split in half by hitting a bedpost and it's revealed that Amy's brother is supposed to be dressed up as Mr. Wood because he's that small and skinny enough to wear clothes like that. But it turned out that Mr. Wood was alive and smashed Slappy's head.Then Amy's parents, sister, and brother believed her that Slappy was the one that vandalized the room.Which is what always happened.
What do You think about Night Of The Living Dummy II (2004)?
I gave this book a four out of five rating because I really enjoyed it and I thought it had a great theme to it. GooseBumps "Night of the Living Dummy 2" had that theme were you never know what is going to happen. It was just how I thought it would be. This book also had a good plot were this dummy comes to life. And this book had a great exposition. From the beginning of the story you knew what was going on and you really get the feel of it fast. The main charactors in the story are the little girl and her Dummy Dennis. She wants a new dummy but her dad can'tafford one. But one day her dad gets a Dummy on sale and brings it home. She notices that the Dummy is strang right away but doesn't realize just how evil it is. So her and her sister have tot try to stop it. I would recomend this book to really anyone who likes mystery books. But overall this was a really great book and I would definetly read it again and again. Because it is a book for all ages young and old.
—Kara
I think I enjoyed this a little more than the first one. My biggest issue is these parents seem so...unrealistic. They seem to react in the most extreme way possible and even treat their children unfairly and wrong but anyway.This second book, we get a little bit more with Slappy and overall more action than the first. You can definitely sit there and see a lot of same formula used, but if there is nothing wrong with the formula, don't fix it, right? I really liked this book, having never actually reading this "sequel" to the original.
—Dustin Spencer
Aidan had picked up some new chapter books at the local used book store and he decided to explore the Goosebumps series. I had never read any Goosebumps, and, after finishing this with them, I think it is what I expected. It's not great young adult literature, but the story was imaginative enough and kept the boys engaged. While there were some spooky parts, nothing was totally terrifying (Owen, at five, was fine with the book). I would not want Goosebumps books to become the foundation of the boys' reading, but I am fine if they want to keep these in the mix for light reading.
—Kim
