The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

Plot Summary: Grady's scientist father uproots his entire family to go live near a swamp. In between bouts of exploring the swamp, Grady meets two new friends, a dog and a swamp hermit. Weird things start happening and dead animals start turning up everywhere, which is apparently cause for concern. After hearing werewolf rumours, Grady begins to worry that his new dog Wolf (yes, Wolf) might be the culprit. Fortunately it's just his human friend Will who is responsible. Will proves himself as the worst werewolf ever as he gets scared off by Wolf, but in the process Grady gets bitten and the curse is passed on. Oops.

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To give it some credit, there are a lot of suspects for the potential werewolf. Unfortunately, it's still pretty obvious that the culprit is Will. I would have honestly preferred Stine to go a different direction and either make Wolf the actual werewolf (obviously rejiggling the plot to make it a surprise) or else make the girl the werewolf. I mean, everyone knew it wasn't going to be Wolf right because it's a werewolf. Wolf-like dogs can't be werewolves!

Grady is also surprisingly okay with his one real human friend in the swamp turning out to be the werewolf. He's far more concerned at the prospect of giving up his dog, to the point that upon seeing the werewolf it's pretty much his first thought.

This isn't a bad book but it's fairly linear and not that creative in terms of plot. An okay read but mostly that's because I love werewolves. It has a lot of the staples of lazy Goosebumps writing, including the weirdly calm parents and reckless protagonist.

Terrible family alert: Grady's dad moves everyone to the swamp so he can study some swamp deer. The book specifically tells us how upset Grady's sister is to miss her final year with her friends and how she cried for days. He also seems totally unconcerned with the prospect of his kids hanging out with a crazy swamp hermit because some guy in town told him the hermit was okay.

Idiot of the year award: Grady is not only unable to recognise moss but insists on investigating the weird werewolf scratching noises multiple times on his own in the dead of night. Really, he deserved to get bitten.

Captain Obvious: 'It's a human wolf! I realized to my terror. A werewolf!'.

Most convenient nickname bestower: Grady names his dog Wolf in a place where there's an actual werewolf.

Rating:

.5