Goosebumps - Night of the Living Dummy

 

Some grade grade 2s and 3s are reading The Night of the Living Dummy.

BOOK SUMMARY 

Identical twins Lindy and Kris Powel are always competing against each other, but the competition becomes really bizarre when they both get ventriloquist dummies. At first, Lindy’s dummy, Slappy, seems to be the big trouble maker. Slappy slaps Kris, insults her, and scares her almost to death in the girls’ bedroom at night. Then a horrifying incident happens late at night in the kitchen involving Kris’s dummy, Mr. Wood. And, finally, Lindy confesses that she knows who has been causing all the trouble—she has!

Kris is furious at her twin, but at least she is no longer afraid of the dummies. However, that soon changes after Kris finds a mysterious note inside the pocket of Mr. Wood’s shirt. Soon after she reads the strange words on the note, Mr. Wood begins to take on a life of his own. First, he insults two elderly neighbors when Kris tries to put on a show. Then, even worse, he behaves diabolically when Kris gives a performance with him at a school concert. Mr. Wood spouts out crude insults as well as a putrid green liquid all over the audience.

Things get totally out of control with Mr. Wood when he tries to turn Kris and Lindy into his slaves. The girls lock him into a suitcase and bury him at a construction site, only to find him sitting in the kitchen, covered with dirt, the next morning. Finally, Kris and Lindy outsmart the dummy, who is flattened by a steamroller. The nightmare seems to be over at last—that is, until Slappy comes to life.