Attack of the Jack

Goosebumps SlappyWorld #2

by R.L. Stine

Devin and his sister Violet are visiting their Uncle Jack for the summer. He lives in an old house by the seashore. Jack was a sailor and he has collected strange and fascinating items from the sea. Exploring a back room, Devin and Violet discover a locked trunk. A pirate's chest. The trunk is wrapped in old, heavy chains and locked with a huge rusted lock. But they manage to get it open.
They lift the lid slowly-and see that it's filled with antique jack-in-the-boxes. Huh? One box is hidden under the others, covered in dust. It plays an odd unpleasant song. Up pops a very ugly, mean-looking puppet, an old pirate with a dirty red bandana over his long greasy hair, scars on his cheeks, and a beard, and one eye missing. "Thanks for letting Sailor Jack out!" he rasps, bouncing on his spring. Devin and Violet now face new and troubling questions: Will Jack return them to their uncle? Just how much is a pirate's promise worth?

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Childrens, Middle Grade, Fantasy, Novels, Pirates

152 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2017

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

After hundreds of Goosebumps books and several iterations of the series, coming up with fresh material had to be a challenge, but R.L. Stine does pretty well. Goosebumps first took to the ocean in Deep Trouble, a classic of the original series, and we revisit that setting for Attack of the Jack with Violet and Shawn Packer (ages twelve and ten), siblings sent to stay with their Uncle Jim while their parents travel on business. Violet and her brother have never met Jim, but the seaside atmosphere seems ripe for adventure in the New England town where he lives. Jim is a quirky old lighthouse keeper who lives alone with his black cat, Celeste, but he's relatively friendly toward the two kids who will spend the next few weeks at his home. Living on the seashore could be fun.

Uncle Jim's household is far from normal, however. Violet and Shawn are stunned when Celeste speaks English to them, in a raspy cat voice. Jim shrugs it off, explaining that Celeste's former owner was an old friend who was in a shipwreck and drifted for two years at sea with Celeste. To stave off madness, he taught his cat to talk. Jim encourages Violet and Shawn to have the run of the house, but warns them not to enter one particular locked door. They disobey this directive the first time they're home alone, and inside the door find a treasure chest full of jack-in-the-boxes. The boxes hold strange figurines dressed like pirates, but when Shawn opens the wrong box, a nasty buccaneer who calls himself Jack the Knife pops out, grows to life-size, and seizes the kids. Uncle Jim is also Jack's prisoner, and to free him and send Jack and his pirate crew back where they came from, Violet and Shawn must complete a journey that will endanger their lives every step of the way. Is there hope for success...or are our protagonists embarking on a fool's errand?

Other than the ocean setting, Attack of the Jack bears little resemblance to Deep Trouble. This book doesn't have the spine-tingling plot surprises that made Deep Trouble a premier addition to the Goosebumps canon. Attack of the Jack revels in the silliness of its characters and doesn't mind if the story lacks logic. The chapters are also longer than usual for Goosebumps. This isn't one of my favorite R.L. Stine books, but I'm sure it has its audience. Slappy the ventriloquist dummy returns as a main character for book three of the SlappyWorld series, I Am Slappy's Evil Twin, and I look forward to it.

[Austin Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not Goosebumps. This is utter drivel.
I would give this book negative stars if I could.

[Justin Tate · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the silliest Goosebumps, but deserves an extra star for being unique in a series that's probably 300 books by now.

[Zoey De Leon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too stupid but I didn't get as much fun as any stupid Goosebumps books, most of the horrors present are mild to none, The titular villain Jack the Knife may be great antagonist but instead, he is not present in the whole majority of the book and we were mostly focusing in his most annoying minions the two headed pirate that always argue and argue, There is more arguing in this book than the great adventure we could have.
The book is mostly good when the villains is not yet present in the first half of the book, I like the atmosphere of living in an ocean with an uncle who is enthusiastic on pirate things and the kids exploring his house full of treasures and some other pirate stuff until the villains appears. Also the inclusion of the talking cat and its backstory are actually great but it is mostly set up just to solve the main conflict at the end so that the book finally concluded.

I like the atmosphere on this one and the main characters, Violet and Shawn and their crazy Uncle but I hate the villains especially the two headed pirate.

[Rue · Rating 2 out of 5]

This didn't packed the punch that the other books from the series did.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very intense book I really like it

[Meegy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another great Goosebumps story! Loved it!
Jack in the Box with a twist. <3

[Sakil Pradhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a 3 out of 5. There are two kids who are going on vacation to their long-lost uncle, Jim. They take a bus to his village. The kids' names are Violet and Shawn they stop at a restaurant and the waiter asks them why they are coming, Violet tells them they are going to their uncle Jim. The waitress told them not to go. She said that he was keeping something a secret. But they didn't believe her and went to his place. Uncle Jim lived in a lighthouse. When Shawn and violet were walking toward his place they found a black cat that talked. When they tried to pet it the cat ran away. They started to get worried. They remembered what the waitress said. they arrived at the door and knocked they were waiting until an older man came to the door and opened it. Then Uncle Jim showed them around and there was a room that he didn't want them going into. Uncle Jim had made food for them while they were eating Uncle Jim was telling a story about a ghost pirate and the way he had gotten the cat, Celeste. There was a pirate out on the sea and he had a cat with him and taught it how to talk the pirate's name was Danny Lubin, After that, they were roaming around so they went to the room that uncle Jim told them about not to go into. When they entered there was the cat. The cat said that she would tell on them for going into the room, and ran away. They also found some jack in the boxes. There was a lot. Shawn Opened the jack in the boxes one by one until there were no more to open. They suddenly noticed that the jack in the boxes came bigger, and the puppets soon turned into a human. They were pirates. There was a two-headed girl, an Ape, another girl, and the captain of them. The leader pirate was called Jack. Violet and Shawn were screaming for uncle Jim, Jack showed them a jack in the box with uncle Jim inside. He was turned into a puppet, Jack told his crew that they were going to take Violet and Shawn to an island and abandon them, When they heard this they were frightened, and Violet was getting stressed and was thinking about why she let Shawn go into the room. The crew took them to the ship. They boarded the ship and Violet and Shawn were looking back and saw Celeste, She was telling them not to go. Violet saw that the Ape was in control of the ship she started to get worried, she also heard the crew talk about where to go. One of the crew members said to follow the moon when it was the afternoon. She thought they were lost. There was a pirate, half alive and half dead. That pirate had Celeste in his hands. The crew was scared, Violet noticed that the pirate was Danny Lubin, the lost pirate. Violet told Shawn who that pirate was, Danny had scared the crew, and they went into their jack in the boxes, Shawn noticed there was one jack in the box that didn't do anything so he opened it and it was Uncle Jim, Celeste had thanked Shawn and Violet. Celeste was with her old owner.

[Leander · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Got a clavicle (collar bone) fracture a week ago, will take around 3-4 months to heal. That, coupled with my seemingly ever-increasing ADD, had me confused as to who the chimp was, who the non-crazy and who the two-headed freak was. This book really kinda irked me tbh, but still, two stars in all honesty)


Violet and Shawn have to stay at their Uncle Jim's house for the summer vacations. While they are excited to meet their eccentric yet 'fun' uncle for the first time, as soon as they step into town, it changes into dread instead. The villagers are afraid of their Uncle. And just maybe, the fear isn't unfounded?
Violet and Shawn will soon come to face with the reality of it all.
And, what's in that off-limit room their Uncle told them about?

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently watched the Goosebumps movie with Jack Black (which I really enjoyed) and this sparked my picking up another Goosebumps book. This isn't from the original series, but an off-shoot. Fun, twisty and tricksey! I may go on a reading binge of these little scary, twisted tales.

[Jelena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stine's books work great for readathons, but this one was not it for me. It was more a middle-grade adventure than horror. And Slappy is annoying as hell showing up randomly in the story. Oh well, it was a quick read if nothing else.

[Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not a good book over all kinda retarded what he did with this book. Not recommended to read, only to waste time.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Youtube

[Jack Osbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable quick read but not as gruesome as the first SlappyWorld!

[Nati Ferrino · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un embole. Por momentos me mantuvo entretenida, y los personajes eran visualmente interesantes, tal vez algo estereotipados. Pero no mucho más.

[I'mogén · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Details:
Narrated by Tarah Consoli and Joe Fria
Unabridged

This one wasn't all too interesting to me. On to the next!

Pick it up, give it a go & enjoy! >(^_^)<
Gén

[Clover · Rating 4 out of 5]

TLDR;
This was fun! I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere; I wish there was more! As soon as I felt ready to explore Sea Urchin Cove, we got whisked away. The characters were entertaining. Salty and Pepper reminded me of the door knockers in Labyrinth and I am curious about Mad Madeline's backstory. It was fast paced, authentic, and I wouldn't mind this being a longer story. I am not a huge fan of pirates, people seem to either be obsessed or indifferent, but I would pick up another pirates book after this. I found it interesting that the entire blurb for this book (on any website) has the wrong character names.

The hook:
Violet Packer (12) and her brother Shawn (10) are spending their summer in the “little New England seaside village” of Sea Urchin Cove with their uncle, Jim Finnegan—Admiral Jim to the townsfolk—while their parents “travel for work this summer.” As soon as they arrive, the townsfolk are visibly shaken when Admiral Jim is mentioned and warn the kids: “Don’t stay in that falling-down old lighthouse with that crazy old coot. [. . . .] Believe me. No one in Sea Urchin Cove wants to go near your uncle. Admiral Jim is hiding something in that old lighthouse. Something evil.” Violet and Shawn try to quell their anxiety and head towards Uncle Jim’s where they meet a talking black cat named Celeste, whom has a tragic and spooky backstory. Uncle Jim shows them around the house and warns: “That’s the only forbidden room. [. . . .] But don’t try to go in that room. It’s the only room ye must never enter.” Alas, despite every warning they “… knew [they] couldn’t resist. [And], as soon as Uncle Jim was out of sight, [they] would be opening that door.” What Violet and Shawn find in that room looks harmless—a locked black wooden chest that “looked gray under a thick layer of dust.”—and they had fun snooping and playing with what was inside. But what they find at the bottom will unleash a whole lot of trouble. Violet and Shawn are then thrust into a frightening adventure with an interesting cast of characters. Will they make it out alive? Will they make it back to their Uncle Jim?

I loved the little village R.L. Stine has built. “The air felt heavy and damp and smelled like fish and salt.” Violet and Shawn pass The Sail Inn and a restaurant called THE WHISTLING CLAM. I loved the description he gives to the land, house, lighthouse, and even the wind. Stine gives a solid world in which Violet and Shawn can roam, but they don’t get to. I would love to see more in this little town. I wish there was more interactions with the townsfolk. This would be enjoyable as a longer book, the small details I got were enough to leave me wanting more in the best way possible. Violet and Shawn get along, which is refreshing. The characters are fun and an interesting lot. I’m curious about Salty and Pepper’s speech patterns, is it similar to the Door Knockers in Labyrinth, or is it just opposite of each other? Mad Madeline’s situation is interesting, whether you believe her or not is another question. Some people love pirates, I am indifferent, but after this book I would happily read another. The ending was a good twist—I wonder how the rest of their summer will go.

This is book #1 of my October Challenge, where I post a (Goosebumps) review every day of October!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the correct book, but I could not find the right one. The correct title is Slappy's World, A dummy's diary.

It was a very scary book that my Grandson Christian picked because he loves Goosebumps books. He has not read it yet, though. every other weekend he spends with his dad so he has not had a chance to know that I read it with his sister.

The book is found in the dumps where Billy and Maggie's Dad works one night that their Dad has to return the dump truck to get their car. When they take it home, their adventure begins.

It is a must read book for Goosebumps lovers and especially Slappy lovers.

[Cole · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Reread)

1.5/5:

Cool setting. Likeable main sibling characters. And a good setup before things kick into gear. Other than that this book is terrible. Tries to be more of a adventure comedy. But the humour in this is awful and I didnt even laugh in the slightest. The villian is lame and barley in the book and the side characters that work with the villian are insanely unlikable/boring and annoying. With an ending that dosent make any since in the slightest. A dumb bad goosebumps book. Way worse than I remembered than the first time I read it.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the second to last chapter could have been a little more interesting, but other than that I think it was a really great book!

[Elina · Rating 3 out of 5]

یه خورده فضایی بود اتفاقات داخل داستان
ولی کتاب روان و ساده ای بود
و طبق معمول پایان بندی حرص درار استاین😑😂

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would you enjoy reading it again:
Probably not. The story felt rushed, there were too many random elements thrown together where this lack of focus led to nothing really thrilling or interesting (if the book had focused on just one element then maybe there could have been something there), the characters were boring/ mean-spirited, the characters being transported to an alternative world (and the talking cat) make the story feel far-fetched and unrealistic so I felt no empathy/ engagement in what I was reading because it was unrelatable. The only funny character in this was Slappy, and Slappy had absolutely nothing to do with the story (in between chapters, Slappy makes jokes about what is happening in the story but otherwise Slappy is irrelevant and just a marketing scheme). This book feels like it was written by an elementary kid who just threw random stuff into a story for the hell of it. There was no moral (which is expected from a Goosebumps book, but because there was no twist ending, it felt strange for the story to not have any purpose because no twist ending makes the ending of the story feel hollow) - 2

Summary: A brother and sister go to their uncle's house for the summer where they fear the summer will be boring but there is this understanding in the town that their uncle is crazy. Their uncle's house has tons of weird stuff, including a talking cat that belonged to a pirate who was lost at sea (the pirate was lost at sea for so long that he was able to teach his cat how to speak when he was lost at sea). The uncle doesn't let them explore a particular room but they explore the room anyways. The siblings open a jack-in-the-box where several crazy characters come to life and out of their boxes. The leader transports them to a different world and threatens to keep the siblings in this different world unless the siblings find the leader's missing bird. The siblings and weird characters go to an island and find the bird (along the way, they get capsized and evil men are after them). When they return the bird to the leader, the leader states he is a pirate and pirate's never keep their promises. The ending the kicks it into high gear where everything gets wrapped up in three pages: the pirate who was lost at sea comes to them as a ghost where the leader is scared of ghosts, and this causes all of the characters to go back into their jack-in-the-boxes, and somehow the uncle became a jack-in-the-box and goes back to normal. Everything goes back to normal and the uncle jokes that he hopes the siblings had fun. There is no twist ending. All throughout the book, Slappy makes jokes about the story but he doesn't contribute to the story at all.

Did you enjoy the plot:
It was bad but I kept reading through it and it was good enough to keep me reading. There are tons of unrelated elements that makes the story confusing and illogical. The story had potential if RL Stine just focused on one concept (like the talking cat, or a ghost pirate, or the jack-in-the-boxes) but throwing them all together made me lose interest fast - 2

Did you enjoy the writing style:
It was rushed and barely descriptive, likely because too much was going on in the book. There were several instances where the story was telling you what was happening and it felt rushed, especially the ending. It felt like RL Stine wrote a summary outline and then stopped there because the story didn't go into too much detail or depth on a lot of things. There was cool descriptions on the scene where they hid in wagons that had spiders in them, and how the waves crashed on the ship, but otherwise there wasn't anything memorable - 2

Good ending?
Very predictable and boring. Like I mentioned, the ending felt hollow because there was no twist ending/ moral (the moral could be to just enjoy things because they were fearing things would be boring and it was anything but boring, but the book fails to fully express this - like the siblings joking about how they had fun - so and it truly feels like there was no moral) - 2

Format: physical book (paperback)
Average rating: 2 stars.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insanely bad with very small pros thrown in there. I’ll get the positives out there first: Pepper and Salty were the best character here, no sibling arguing for a change, and the ending was fine. Also, the uncle’s stories were neat. Celeste is a bit mixed for me to say the damn least. That’s all I can and will give positives for. Without sugarcoating anything, this book was awful. It had an all for nothing style twist, rushed “climax”, an awful scene relating to a banana plantation (bare with me) that was way to fucking goofy to be even for a third grade level. Newborns would be entertained by this shit, and the other pirates besides the two/three you stick around with besides the monkey are dog shit. The Jacker offer himself was barely in the book! The plot was stupid and cheesy, predictable, very luck based (which they even point out), unfunny and generally really uninteresting. Talk about how to make a goosebumps book 100% bad comedy instead of scary in the slightest sense of the word. 2.5/10 had near little things but overall it’s hard to like this book, it’s just a terrible story.

[Angel]

Attack of the jack is a really good book by R.L. Stine the story is about a boy named Billy and his sister Sheena. They go to visit their uncle on an island, a pirate named Captain Jack. He forgets that he is supposed to pick them up and they have to walk there. He’s scary, but kind. He warns the children not to go into a specific room which makes them want to go in there. When captain jack leaves for his work they go inside the forbidden room. They find a chest inside the room and find a key for it and when they open the chest they find boxes with a crank on the side of each one of them then they start spinning the cranks one by one and toys pop up one of them was a clown and it played an creepy song. Then they find a big one at the bottom of the chest and the crank is missing. When they open it BOOM! A bunch of smoke comes out and then they see a pirate that can talk. Billy tries to push the doll back inside the box but then it jumps off of its spring and starts to grow. This books genre is horror and I would recommend it for students who are in year 5 to 7.

[Aarav Agrawal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a spoiler-free review. (Pirate's Promise)
This book was a banger!!! The book had me thinking about the prejudice that I had against Goosebumps. I had always thought Goosebumps are just not scary enough but still focus on the horror more than the story. Well, to say the least... This book changed it all. The book was kinda creepy and most of all had a fantastic storyline. This was the part which made me like the book more than the other, it had one of the most gripping scripts ever. I guess that the fact that this book was more adventure-oriented made it even better for me. There was one thing missing though this book lacked a scary, hair-raising monster. I know I liked the story, but it lacked that particular Goosebumps feeling, that horror factor in it and for that I can't call it a Goosebumps. I know I started on hugely positive note and I can say that all holds true, just not under the banner of Goosebumps.

[Book Jester · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was this month's bedtime read with my 8 year-old son so although it doesn't fit with this month's category of unfamiliar authors I didn't mind because I usually love a good R. L. Stine Goosebumps book.

This one wasn't one of the best at all. Pirates are one of my sons favourite topics to read about (along with anything to do with the Titanic!) but I found this whole story was just a bit odd with mad tangents and too many characters. Of course I liked doing the pirate voices but I just felt the story could've been so much better. My son seems to enjoy anything and everything we read together but he didn't have as much to say about this one as he usually does. It certainly hasn't put me off reading the rest of the books in this series but I just hope the others are a bit better than this one.

[Sandra Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two kids were staying with their strange sailor uncle…and his talking cat. A talking cat?

The kids could explore anywhere in the lighthouse…except one room. Don’t go in that room. Naturally, that just makes them curious and they go in the room. Inside, they find lots of Jack-in-the-Box toys. One of them had a pirate puppet named Jack the Knife. Are you ready for a Jack Attack?

The little pirate jumps out of the box and grows 6 ft tall. Soon, all the figures pop out and grow, too. Oh, no! This all leads into quite an adventure at sea with being stranded, nearly drowning, and getting enslaved as banana pickers.

A fun and wild read!

[Frank Angelone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story, especially how it started out definitely intrigued me. The whole concept of two kids visiting their "mysterious" Uncle had me hooked. Although, the middle of the book - for me - dragged a little. However, it did pick up towards 3/4 to the end of the book as you wonder if the two kids are going to get to the island alive or not. Also wondering if they can save their Uncle and get things back to normal was a fun plot line. Personally, the conclusion at the end with the cat (no spoilers) was my favorite part. It was a good way to bring the story full circle.

[Joshua Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 4 star pirate story! This was the first of the SlappyWorld books that I've "read." I rather enjoyed the audiobook, I felt that the voices for the characters fit well, especially Slappy and Jack the Knife. This was a nice experience to see how Stine's writing has developed over the years. ( The SlappyWorld series compared to the classic goosebumps series.)

Overall I rather enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to any fan of the goosebumps series and its spin-off series as well as anyone looking for a nice comfy, pirate adventure story.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Attack of the Jack was a fun and adventurous read!

Usually, R.L. Stine's characters are a tad whiney; however, in this story, they were actually likeable. And the twist in this book was not that predictable; I was actually shocked at one point in the story! However, the end was a tad disappointing; it felt rather rushed. Nonetheless, Attack of the Jack was enjoyable and unputdownable.

The Slappyworld series keeps getting better, and I am looking forward to the next book in this series!