Content Warning: I’m not one to put these kind of things, but this book has a few too many threats of animal abuse for me to not put one so uh…there’s that. Keep that in mind if that bothers you.

Hello, Spongey here. Welcome back to Goosebumps Ripoff Month! Now we’re getting into what is likely the most well known of these, Bone Chillers! Seriously, if you’re only aware of one of these, it’s this one. It’s also probably the first one, starting in February of 1994, and lasting for about 24 entries. It’s also lucky to be one of the few of these to spawn a TV show, and it actually got one back when the series was actually relevant!

I talked about two episodes of the show back in the day, and the thing with the show is that it basically had nothing to do with the books. The books are of course an anthology, while the show has a consistent cast, and of the 13 episodes, only a couple were based off the books and they were pretty loose adaptations. Kind of weird but ah well. (Heck, one of the books was actually based on an episode, instead of the other way around)

Speaking of the show, it aired on ABC, which of course is owned by Disney. This means Bone Chillers can, and should, be on Disney+. Get on that, damn it!

Anyway, These were written by Betsy Haynes, and besides not doing the two initials thing, she gets credit for being the most accomplished author of all the people behind these. She had been writing since the 70’s and had a few series under her belt, which is mentioned in super tiny type at the top of some of the covers of these.

A lot of the latter half of the series was actually ghostwritten but unlike even Ghosts of Fear Street, which stuck the real author’s name on the copyright page, this one put their name on the same page where Betsy’s name alone would be, and it says “Created by Betsy Haynes, Written by X”. That’s kind of neat.

(And if you’re interested, there’s a podcast interview with one of said ghostwriters that I fond neat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq6byol14p4&t=676s )

Anyway, since we’ve seen the show, today we’ll see what ones of the books is like. For this project, I was limited to what I could actually get a hold of. I would have loved to do “Why I Quit The Babysitter’s Club” or “Blowtorch @ Psycho.com” but I got stuck picking this one. I picked it purely based on the cover allowing me to make furry jokes and…well, you’ll see how that turned out.

So yeah, let’s dive in.

This, is Little Pet Shop of Horrors

The cover artist isn’t credited but it’s Tim Jacobus. If the style isn’t proof enough, he has said as such a couple times so yeah. And unlike Deadtime, I think he did all/most of them. This one is okay, not a big fan of when he does realistic kid faces though. It sells the concept well enough, just not one of my favorites.

The book begins with our protagonist Cassidy Cavanaugh and her friend Suki Chen riding their bikes outside when they notice a pet shop that wasn’t there before. Dang, that was fast. Cassie loves animals so she wants to peak in, because you can always trust shops that appear out of nowhere.

They head inside and meet the shop’s owner, Mr. Willard. This place is called Custom Pets and they can get you any pet you request. But after spending like one minute in there, Suki drags them out so they’ll have to look into this later.

“You’ll be back” he said. Then he laughed.

Well, that’s not suspicious at all.

They go back out and soon bump into a local bully named David Ferrante.

“It’s Hopalong Cassidy! Hey everybody, say hi to Hopalong!”

And that’s how I found that Hopalong Cassidy was an actual thing and not something Stine made up for that one bit in Monster Blood 1. David has a white box with him, which is home to a tarantula that he tortures Cassie with.

He tells them that he got it at that pet shop and continues his torture by straight up throwing the spider at Cassie. Damn, Courtney, eat your heart out! The girls run away and go to Suki’s house.

They talk about the pet shop and Cassie laments that her parents wouldn’t let her get a puppy because she’s quite allergic. She thinks perhaps she can request a kind of dog that won’t turn on her allergies so she heads back there, this time without Suki, to see if Mr. Willard can do that for her.

He says he can order one for her, no problem, she just needs to tell her parents before ordering anything. She actually brings that up, so it’s nice to know she’s smart enough to put that before her wants. I don’t know, I can’t go too long without a comment or this is just a glorified wiki article.

A big dog then comes out and lunges at her and after Mr. Willard calms it down, the dog starts looking at her with sad eyes. Almost like it’s trying to tell her something. The dog being so sad is why she gets pretty upset when Mr. Willard harshly drags the dog into the back room. Yeah, maybe trusting this guy isn’t such a good idea after all.

She goes home and tells her parents about Custom Pets and they shoot her down, and say people like Willard will do anything to sell their stuff and he just wants her money. Damn, that’s actually pretty reasonable. So that’s the end of that, a pretty short book, I must say.

A few days later, she drops by the shop anyway. She starts hearing a cat’s painful yowls from the other room, and it seems like they’re in big pain. Willard ignores it so she tries to see what is going on, but he yells at her to stay out. This is what causes her to realize he’s bad news and says she’s never coming back here.

But before she can leave, she sees David about to enter, so she hides behind some boxes. David tells Willard that he accidentally sat on his tarantula, so he needs a new pet. He is with his parents and they fill out a form to get themselves a dog. By the way, she laughs at the idea of David killing his spider, which is pretty messed up. The spider didn’t ask for this!

David leaves and Cassie gets ready to follow suit when Mr. Willard pops up. He offers him a glass of strange of pink liquid and she accepts it, because she hasn’t learned her lesson. Yeah, she almost kinda deserves what is about to happen. And sure enough, everything soon fades to black. When she wakes up, she sees Mr. Willard holding a dog collar in front of her face.

…I don’t like where this is going.

To cut to the chase, Cassie has been turned into a dog or something. Huh, that joke makes me wonder if this guy works for Dr. Murkin. (Yes, I know his deal was the opposite, roll with me here) Anyway, Cassie will be the next pet to be picked up by someone and it is made clear that all the pets here are former humans. Wait, if that’s the case, than that means that tarantula David sat on was a child. Meaning, he accidentally murdered a child there.

….Damn.

After a failed attempt to escape, she goes to sleep and wakes up to discover a cruel twist of fate: David is the one who is going to adopt her, uh oh. David and his parents head home, and she tries to tell them what is going on but of course to them it just seems like the dog is being really annoying.

I think now is a good time to randomly wonder if there’s been any reports of missing children, given the spider and the mention of a few other pets in that shop. Just saying.

They get home and we see that David actually does have want to take care of his new dog, which is weirdly cute. Even if I think if he wouldn’t be as nice if he knew who this dog really was. Cassie tries to take a nap but chooses to do so on the couch, which angers David’s dad.

“Let me at that dog! I’ll make her shut up for good!”

…Yikes. David does manage swoop in but uh, oof. Honestly, given how grumpy David’s Dad is throughout this whole thing, I think we may have found the source of David’s behavior.

David takes her outside for a walk and Cassie starts to notice the little inconveniences that come with being a dog, like fleas and such. The observations of normal things that may seem scary to a dog are kind of amusing. They arrive at the park and bump into that dog with the sad eyes from earlier, who has found its very rude owner. We don’t get to find out if she can understand other dogs, because the owner yanks Cuda away before he can actually bark anything.

It’s sad that the bully character is the nicest pet owner in this thing.

David meets up with some friends to show off his new dog. Cassie refuses to fetch which makes him a bit upset. I think Cassie should just suck it up and do it, I mean geez. Even after she thinks she should just do it, she refuses to anyway. David gets really angry and gets ready to kick her before Suki magically shows up to stop him.

Well, so much for him being a nice pet owner but to be fair, he was raised by a guy who threatened Cassie earlier so really, he’s just leading by example. Cassie runs at Suki, somehow thinking this will make her realize the dog is Cassie but what a shock, it doesn’t work.

“Suki Chen had been her best friend forever. And even she didn’t recognize Cassie. Even worse, Suki was afraid of her!”

Cassie, I like you, but you are not very smart.

We skim through the next few days, meaning Cassie’s parents have definitely noticed she is gone and filed a missing persons report by now. Yeah, there’s no way to prove that this dog is their missing kid and all that but I just wanted to remind you of that.

One night, David’s Dad is ranting about how dogs were so much better back in his day and he prefers hunting dogs instead of dogs like Cassie that just spend all day being lazy. This guy just gets more lovely by the minute. Mom suggests they take Cassie out to teach her how to hunt and Dad thinks that’s a great idea so the next morning, they do just that.

David is actually being taught how to hunt as well, which means Dad has brought a couple of shotguns. Damn, wasn’t expecting that. Cassie even gets scared hearing them trying to shoot some birds. They shoot some down and tell Cassie to fetch the birds.

“She trembled as she stared down the gun barrel. Was he pointing it toward her on purpose? Would he actually shoot her if she didn’t get the birds?”

First off, Jesus Christ Betsy, tone this down a little. Second off, at this point I would not put it past the Dad to do it, which is sad. She gets the bird but after Dad yells at her for not putting it down in the right way, she gives up.

“What’s more, she wasn’t about to be part of killing animals just for sports”

I think Betsy Haynes might be against hunting. And I’m cool with that. After a morning of that, Cassie is forced to sleep in the basement. The next day…well, remember my missing persons report joke? Yeah, it came true as she overhears the news talking about a missing child, and Cassie is said missing child.

Her attempts to tell them their dog is Cassie fail yet again so she has to try another strategy. Her plan is…to ruin David’s prized baseball shoes and some other items, thinking it will get his attention and now he will try to understand her. …Once again, you are not very bright. You had his attention already and I really don’t think ruining his stuff will help in the slightest.

Sure enough, David and his dad are pissed when they see what she has done and even worse, Cassie the dog now has to go to obedience school. With that, we cut to said obedience school, being taught by a lovely fellow named Bruiser. She finally promises herself to just do what the humans say, but spots Cuda while she’s here and screws everything up trying to get his attention.

Bruiser starts tugging super tight on her collar, which causes her to choke enough that she bites him to get him to stop. Needless to say, she gets expelled. David thankfully sees that it was in self defense but of course Dad isn’t having any of that. For him, this is the last straw and they are returning Cassie to the pet store.

David is not happy about this.

“To her surprise, she felt an unexpected rush of an affection for him. Maybe he isn’t a total jerk after all, she thought.”

D’aww.

David gets Cassie out to the backyard while the parents discuss her fate. She finds some mud and spells out a message saying “Help! Not Dog! Girl!”, which is her first plan that has a chance of working. Of course, it doesn’t but whatever. When the parents come out, they just get mad at Cassie for being covered in mud and force her to sleep outside.

The next morning, Cassie tries to dig a hole under the fence so she can escape, which goes as well as you would expect. Her fate is sealed, she’s going back to Custom Pets. They gather in the car, and David say he is gonna miss Cassie, and she surprisingly returns the feelings now that she sees he’s not so bad. As long as you don’t refuse to fetch at least. She is returned to the pet shop and the Ferrantes leave Cassie at the mercy of Mr. Willard.

He takes her into that back room she tried to enter earlier. Eh, I’m sure he’ll just keep her captive forever or something like.

“Since nobody wants you…I’m going to have to put you to sleep”

…Oh. And yes, this does mean what you think it means. I guess it’s on brand for this book but damn.

“Was this what had caused that cat’s terrible wailing? Cassie wondered”

If so, than that means we basically heard a child dying while stuff was going on. …Who knew Bone Chillers would be so hardcore? He opens the cage so he can needle her which of course leads to her trying to escape.

Eventually, Mr. Willard falls over and can’t get up, because as I failed to mention, he’s…uh, a big boi. She uses this chance to take the syringe and hide it. She tries to hide herself but eventually he gets up and is able to find her. Also, he has another needle, wah wah.

Thankfully, he randomly leaves, saying he’s going to get help and when he gets back, Cassie is dead. Just in case you needed it be flat out stated. Cassie tries to use a window but fails and only ends up breaking a glass bottle full of some liquid. She figures at this point this will be her last drink and dogs are always gross so, why not drink a random liquid?

Doing so is what got her into this mess and….it turns out it is what gets her out. Yep, it turns out she happened to stumble upon the liquid that turns her back into a human. She recognizes the taste so I guess it works both ways? Whatever, we’re almost done. The bad news to all this is that…uh…

“Oh no! What did he do with my clothes?”

….And now I’m on an FBI watchlist, thanks Betsy Haynes.

Don’t worry, she finds them quickly, thank god. Mr. Willard returns but she’s a human so she is able to book it and leave. She goes home and they just quickly say that Cassie told her parents that she has amnesia and can’t remember where she went and they just buy it. I get that they won’t believe her whole…thing but come on.

The good news is that while she was gone, they decided to actually get her a pet in the form of a Pekinese they got from a pet shop. They don’t say if it’s a non-allergic dog though, which is kind of the reason they refused before. Anyway, Cassie likes the dog, but the way it acts and even looks is a tad familiar…

“Suki?!”

Dun dun dun. That’s the most functional twist we’ve had in this month so far, I’ll say that much. The end!

Final Thoughts:

I actually rather liked this one, generally. The concept is a silly one which fits well for this kind of series. They get a decent amount of mileage out of it, from the hunting scene to obedience school. There’s some amusing observations as Cassie realizes how certain things are from a dog’s point of view.

Mr. Willard’s…plan near the end also provides a sense of danger that added somewhat of a scare factor to a silly idea. Willard in general is surprisingly effective as a villain as a result. Cassie is a decently likable protagonist, even if she proves to be kind of dumb of points. I also liked the whole thing with David, and how the bully is actually allowed some form of growth somewhat.

Speaking of flaws, there’s only so many scenes of her angering people because of her refusal to do dog things I can take before it got repetitive. And yeah, all of those abuse threats were uncomfortable to read. Some of the darker stuff worked,but that felt like a bit much.

This is sort of like if the 3rd act of The Barking Ghost was better realized, actually using the “kid becomes a dog” idea to a better extent and having a (somewhat) better explanation for how we get into it. And to think this came out first, good on Betsy.

Some uncomfortable stuff aside, this was solid enough for what it is and certainly threw me for a loop a couple of times. I’m interested in reading more, as long as there’s less animal abuse threats. Seriously, I don’t feel too bad for putting that warning out there.

So yeah, Bone Chillers gets a win. The first four were put on Amazon Kindle in 2016, including this one, so there you go if you want to check this out fully.

Rating: Good

(Side note, the blurb on the back claims Cassie has to stay overnight at the pet store in order to get her pet, which isn’t…quite what happens. Also, imagine if this got made into an episode)

Next time, we finally wrap up this month, as we get some Shivers.

See ya.