They're baa-ack! Make way for the bestselling children's series of all time! With a fresh new look, GOOSEBUMPS is set to scare a whole new generation of kids. So reader beware--you're in for a scare!
Right brain. Wrong body. Gary Lutz needs a vacation . . . from himself. Bullies are constantly beating him up. His only friend is his computer. Even his little sister doesn't like him. But now Gary's dream is about to come true. He's going to exchange bodies with another kid for a whole week. Gary can't wait to get a new body. Until something horrible happens. And Gary finds out his new body isn't exactly human . . . .
Book Details:
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 4/1/2005
Pages: 144
Reading Level: Age 7 and Up
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.
There's a scary world out there. And you got to be afraid and being casual can get you rolling up the grave. Or worse.
All's not going well for Gary and he does not have himself to blame. He's out of favor from his sister, his backstreet contains bullies that are up to no good and the neighbor is just another name for torture in the name of practical jokes.
These sum up as enough reasons for him to trade off a deal which goes somewhat as :
TAKE A VACATION FROM YOURSELF Change places with someone for a week! PERSON-TO-PERSON VACATIONS 113 Roach Street, Suite 2-B or call 1-800-555-SWAP
The only problem is that he ends up in the body of a bee.
The story flow was as enthralling as that you expect with the brand name of R.L. Stine. Meticulous and novel in the ways of scaring the scream out of people is his trademark.
Loved the characters that revolve around the protagonist weaving a seemingly easy read but with an chilling story to haunt your insides.
In Why I'm Afraid of Bees, young Gary Lutz hates his life; he's constantly bullied, is socially awkward, and is mistreated even by his own family. He wants an escape, and when he reads an online ad for a company that will let you be someone else for a week, he jumps at the opportunity. He soon finds out this isn't a simple "life swap" scenario where two people simply trade places at home for a week and live someone else's life at a surface level; this company has some futuristic technology that actually switches the two subjects' minds, so you will be in the other person's body. During the procedure, a bumblebee is near Gary and everything goes horribly wrong, with Gary's mind ending up in the body of a bee. Can Gary get his body back and escape from this nightmare?
This is the worst of the original 62 Goosebumps books I've reread so far. The plot is absolutely ridiculous and filled with holes, the characters are flat and forgettable, and Gary is kind of brain dead, constantly going from person to person and trying to talk to them, only to find they can't hear him each time. You'd think he would have given up after the first person, but Goosebumps characters are notoriously moronic in that they keep making the same mistakes over and over again without learning anything, and this entry is no exception.
On the plus side, there is some interesting information woven into the plot on real life bee behavior, so it seems R.L. Stine did some research for this one. Honestly though, I finished this book...I don't know...a little over a week ago? And I have already forgotten how it ends. That's never a good sign. Some people say this one is really funny, and it does have a bit of a cult following, but I didn't really find it funny other than in maybe one or two places, and overall think it's average Goodreads star rating is pretty generous.
#17 "He's no ordinary human bee-ing..." Poor Gary Lutz is made fun of I just about everyone. Even his mom laughs at him. He's in desperate need of a vacation from himself and his life. So when he gets the chance to do just that for a whole week he jumps on the opportunity. But something goes horribly horribly wrong. Gary may never be the same again!
Gary Lutz (age 12) hates his life. His neighbor, Mr. Andretti, is a beekeeper who plays practical jokes on Gary because he knows Gary is afraid of bees.
His 9-year-old sister also plays practical jokes on him and is stronger and braver than he is. Her cat, Claus, goes out of his way to scratch Gary.
The three huge bullies in the neighborhood delight in pounding Gary's face in every day, leaving him with black eyes and other bruises.
He's terrible at sports and is always picked last on any team. When he tries to flirt with any girls, he always does something klutzy that makes them laugh at him.
Frankly, he needs a break from his crappy life.
Luckily, it's the early days of the Internet in 1993. On his gaming forum he sees an advertisement:
TAKE A VACATION FROM YOURSELF Change places with someone for a week! PERSON-TO-PERSON VACATIONS 113 Roach Street, Suite 2-B or call 1-800-555-SWAP
Gary goes there to find a small dentist-like office filled with equipment that looks like something out of Star Trek. He signs up for the program. Only when Mrs. Karmen comes over to do the switch at Gary's house, she switches his mind into the body of a bee that had flown into the kitchen.
Trapped inside a bee's body, filled with a craving for nectar and pollen, unable to communicate with his family, and knowing that he will die in autumn, Gary frantically searches for a way out. Will he ever be back in his real body again? ...
This was one of my favorite Goosebumps books when I was a kid. It delighted me to no end. Perhaps because body-switching is always so fun and cool.
Some things are obviously silly! No, not the body-switching! That makes perfect sense, LOL. What doesn't make sense: - The company is fine with switching 12-year-old bodies with other bodies and no parent permission or knowledge is needed. - Gary is somehow still able to speak English (in a teeny-tiny voice) even though he has a bee's head and tongue. Just not possible. - Gary insists in talking to/yelling at humans while he is a bee. Dude: they can't hear you. Stop screaming at them all the time. They CAN'T HEAR YOU. I have no idea why he never seems to grasp this idea, even after he tries and fails about 80 times. - Dirk's parents fail to notice that their son has turned into a flower-munching, buzzing idiot.
That's the real message of this book, I guess: even though your (white, middle-class, suburban) life seems SO TERRIBLE - it's really not. Appreciate all the things you have and people who love you. You could always have it worse - you could be a honeybee! Dum, dum DUM!!!!!
P.S. Claus is a cute name for a cat. Claus. Claws. Get it? GET IT?!!?!?
P.P.S. It is also a little scary at the times when Gary enjoys being a bee, and thinks about what a good bee he could be, and occasionally it seems like he might forget about being human. That is frightening.
While this definitely isn’t my favourite Goosebumps story, I do still think the idea is great. It’s just the main character that doesn’t do it for me. He’s just such an insufferable, annoying child to me and he spoiled the amazing potential the story had. I’m so big on characters when I’m reading so it’s hard for me when I cross a character like this! I mean, if I was a young kid and I got to trade bodies with a bee I’d be absolutely thrilled, especially since it’s only for a week. So why you gotta be such a buzzkill Gary? Now that my rant about Gary is over, the story itself was great! Just replace Gary with someone new and we have a winner. Which maybe was the whole point of the story?! I feel myself going down a dangerous, rambling path so I’m going to leave it at that. Good story, bad Gary.
R.L. Stine provides us with a lesson in gratitude in this Goosebumps take on a familiar tale. Definitely not one of the best in the series but it does provide the usual nostalgia hit you get with these books. For me personally it reminded me of sitting out in the garden on a sunny day (you know, those childhood summers that lasted forever) and also brought back memories of Treehouse of Horror when Bart turned into a fly. Pure 90s nostalgia!
I'm sure I am far from alone, being a child during the 90s, in saying that Goosebumps had a uniquely captivating hold on my imagination for many years. More precisely, I should say the covers, rather than the stories themselves, enchanted me. Countless times did I check one of these out from my school library, only to reach the third of fourth chapter before losing interest. For some reason, certain entries in the series (the more iconic ones, I guess) were much easier to come across. Some of the zanier-looking ones (Calling All Creeps, Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, and indeed Why I'm Afraid of Bees) seemed to be a good deal rarer.
Up until I actually became a proper reader myself (in other words, stuff other than Harry Potter, to not know which felt akin to not being able to swim, or having no gaming console of any sort), I had only read two of them all the way through: Go Eat Worms, which for some reason did manage to sustain my attention and even somewhat frightened me, and one of the Night of the Living Dummy.
In more recent years, I began gradually to address that childhood itch I never quite got over. Still more recently, I have actually gotten to the point of reading one each year, which I enjoy, despite the books being famously inconsistent. While stuff like The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight and even more iconic ones like Welcome to Dead House and The Haunted Mask left much to be desired, I actually found some - like Welcome to Camp Nightmare and Stay Out of the Basement - to be genuinely entertaining, even a little unsettling in the most "PG" of ways.
This one then, being of those weirder titles I usually wouldn't choose as often due to a weird tendency I have to delay that which most interests me, came about by way of my four-year-old son. I was showing him the original covers on the internet, and decided (some might say irresponsibly, though I disagree) that maybe I would actually read one to him and see it to the end. Thanks to online resources like Internet Archive, I did have more or less free access to the entire collection. It was this one that my boy insisted on, so I put it up on Goodreads and, with quiet satisfaction, settled into my Goosebumps read of 2024.
That I grew impatient with the slow progress we were making (one chapter per night, with my son becoming quickly indifferent) and decided just to go on alone at a faster pace is enough of an indication of this being an enjoyable one.
Contrary to my expectations, this was actually one of the best that I have read so far. Granted, Stine could still have done more with the concept. It could have been a good deal scarier, and also funnier (the idea of a boy having the trapped consciousness of a bee was woefully under-exploited). But, for all that, I found the book more surprising, more entertaining, and indeed more original that I have come to expect this series generally to be.
If I wanted to be a try-hard and really clutch at loose threads, I could even try and argue that this story provides an insightful (if offensively negative) allegory for gender-identity or something of the sort. But no, that isn't for me. And it would be pretentiously try-hard. However, it was a rare surprise that this book even had me open to the possibility that there were deeper layers of meaning to be found within the text.
Why I'm Afraid of Bees? Goosebumps' seventeenth in the series? I say Stine hits a good one this time around.
Title:Why I'm Afraid Of Bees What I thought about this book as a kid:It's time to get sentimental.Why I'm Afraid Of Bees is a book I have alot of strong nostalgia for.When I was a kid I had a family meeber get stuck in a hospital for a long time.I remember I would bring books with me everywhere I went.I remember a friend of mine that lived next door told me he read this book in one day and I felt like I had to do the same.I didn't finish it in one day like I thought I would,but I did get pretty far in it.I remember picking this book mostly to compete with a friend.Im glad this is the book I brought with me though,because at the time I really enjoyed this one.The cover never appealed to me,so this being a good book really emphasized the whole don't judge a book by its cover thing.As far as what I actually remember,wow.There were lots of things I remembered differently.I did remember plenty of Bees,flying around,going inside a beehive and the beekeeper.I thought I remembered the ending,but that is false.I also remembered the solution,but only sort of.
Plot:The story follows Gary Lutz,or Lutz the klutz as everyone that bullies him calls him,and boy does Gary get bullied.Gary is afriad of alot of things,bees included ,so this makes him an easy target.We first see Gary get a little bullied by his neighbor,Mr Anderelli.Yes,this is a grown man that bullies Gary.His neighbor is a beekeeper and sees Gary spying on him and pretends The Bees are hurting him and Gary runs away inside.He goes to the park to play some baseball and everyone bullies him.They even give him four strikes,because he is not good at baseball.He gets beat up by these three bullies twice.His little sister even pulls a prank on him.Gary's only thing that really brings him joy is his computer.He is playing this game and is stuck on it so he goes into a forum to find out more information.Here he sees an add pop up and it's a thing advertising a vacation from your body.Gary knows where this address is at so he goes there.He meets this lady named Mrs.Karmen and she basically tells Gary he can swap bodies with another person for a week.She shows him a potential list of kids that may want to trade bodies with him.He has time to think about this,so he heads home.On the way home he gets beat up agian by the bullies.He waits on the phone call from Mrs.Karmen.When she finally calls he agrees to it.Gary dosn't know why somebody would want to trade bodies with him,but he finds out the other person just wants good grades.Thisis where the story gets slightly sketchy.Mrs.Karmen goes to Gary's house with the body swapping equipment.Durring the process,a bee enters and when Gary wakes up he is a bee.Now he has to find his way back to his old body while avoiding,the house cat,His sister with a flyswatter,and angry bees.
What I thought about this book as an adult:So I'll admit,this was a hard one to review.Nostalgia sometimes has you remember things way differently.For some reason I kinda thought Gary had a head like a human and the bee body,just like the cover dipects.I also didn't remember the dragonfly,or the cat scenes.I also remembered the ending absolutely wrong.I can't say what I thought,because that's spoilers,with all of that being said I still had a good bit of fun with this book.I thought the bee scenes were fun and some were even funny.When the bees get mad at Gary because he isn't working,I related so much with the other bees.I was really interested in the person to person vacation thing,eventhough I knew we wouldn't learn anything about them.I also thought Gary not getting his body back,because dirk dodnt want to leave was very dreadful.The only complaints I have is some of the bee stuff did get repetitive,other then that,I really liked this reread.I give Why I'm Afraid Of Bees a four out of five stars.
I spent a month re-reading all 62 original Goosebumps books to see if they still hold up today, you can check out my 3.5 hour vlog here: https://youtu.be/2C73xc1FS5o
You can also check out my entire ranking of the original Goosebumps books from worst to best here: https://youtu.be/lBfaxCOwAnA
When unpopular kid Gary Lutz (Lutz the Klutz) finds an advert for a body swapping company that gives people the ability to trade places with other kids for a week it instantly peaks he’s interest. As normally he bears the brunt of others pranks.
When Gary’s neighbour Bee Keeping Mr. Andretti tricks him again Gary instantly agrees to the switch with Dirk Davis. Dirk is looking for someone to take he’s maths test for him.
But during the trade something goes wrong, as Gary now finds himself in the insects body. One of the bee from next door must have flown into the machine...
One of the standouts in this series as Stine does something a little different here, this has all the hallmarks of a great Sci-Fi story. Very entertaining and fun, it’s a worth inclusion to the series.
Δεν θα έλεγα πως πρόκειται για ένα από τα πιο τρομακτικά βιβλία της σειράς, ωστόσο οφείλω να αναγνωρίσω πως έχει από τα πιο ωραία μηνύματα, που δίνονται με άμεσο και κατανοητό τρόπο στο νεανικό κοινό. Σημαντικότερο όλων, πως η ζωή μας μπορεί να φαίνεται καμιά φορά πως είναι χάλια, αλλά πως στην πραγματικότητα δεν ισχύει κάτι τέτοιο και πως πρέπει να εκτιμάμε ό,τι έχουμε, προσπαθώντας να κάνουμε την κάθε μέρα μας καλύτερη.
What's a guy to do, when he's afraid of bees? Why, get into a bunch of sci-fi hijinx, of course!
This book felt disorganized and disjointed, and turned out exactly as I expected. Some good one-liners, but everything else was running on rails. Eh, we all have off days.
Recommended if you're doing a Goosebumps run, otherwise not.
This one was fun because it’s one of the Goosebumps books that I missed out on when I was a kid. As an adult, I’ve been trying to work my way through all of the ones that I missed out on, at least from the original series, and that’s why I picked this one up.
I thought it held up pretty well, even when reading it as an adult. It’s also worthy of note because it uses the whole body swap thing, in this case switching a kid who’s scared of bees with an actual bee. Some spooky stuff.
***
J’ai lu ce livre en anglais donc c’était moins difficile que j’ai prévu. J’ai trouve les temps assez durs, mais je suis un rosbif donc ça ne m’a pas trop dérangé.
Aussi, je n’ai pas peur des abeilles; en fait, j’ai une gitarre qui s’appelle “Abeille”, et elle ne m’a pas encore piqué. Une fois, bien sur, je me suis fait mal à la main en changeant les cordes, mais un peu de sang n’a jamais tué personne.
Je recommande ce livre si vous apprenez le français ou si vous êtes jeune, mais ce n’est pas le meilleur de la série. Un jour, je lirai plus de cette série en français, mais je suppose que je devrais terminer la série en anglais avant de la commencer.
I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would. While I admit that the concept isn't really scary, the actual plot and story weren't bad at all. The idea of turning into a bee doesn't make for a spooky read, but apparently, it does make for an interesting one. This was my third Goosebumps book, The first and second being Dead House and A Night in Terror Tower. Dead House is still my favorite so far but this book is my second favorite now. Looking forward to reading more of these since I never read them when I was younger. I'll bee back for the next one.
No es de lo mejor del autor, aunque es un libro entretenido el cual, a mis ojos, se ve como una versión juvenil de "The Fly" (1958). Se pone un poco tedioso cuando el protagonista comienza a experimentar su "nueva vida", y más tarde a querer escaparle a la misma. Entre tanta indecisión, llega a tornarse algo engorroso, aunque no deja de ser una lectura ágil y extraña, al fiel estilo "Escalofríos".
Why I'm Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine is Goosebumps book number 17 in the original order. This book is filled with bees the first sentence warns. The story is a take on The Fly meets It's a Wonderful Life where two people try to switch bodies but a bee gets in the mix. This story is the most twilight zone like, and the only Goosebumps book with a truly happy ending. The story is pretty focused the jump scares are rare and not too bad when happen. The story sometimes felt a bit too informational, and not enough about the scares. This story has a little elements of horror, but more science fiction than horror.
The Plot: Gary Lutz is tired of being "Lutz the Klutz". He wants a change. everybody picks on him, his younger sister, her mean cat, the neighbor next door who's a beekeeper, Bees in general, and neighborhood kids. Gary gets the opportunity of a life time, the chance to switch bodies with a cooler kid in the same grade Dirk Davis. The experiment was going perfect until a bee got in the way, the Dirk Davis becomes Gary, Gary becomes a bee, and the bee is in the mind of Dirk Davis. Gary want the experiment over, but Dirk doesn't want to switch . What's Gary to do become a bee the rest of his life,? Or do something drastic to his own body?
What I Liked: This book flows pretty well, not to many boring parts. The bee puns are bad but funny bad. I like the only way Gary can speak mostly through microphones. I love the character who runs Person to Person, body switching store. The ending was happy, yet still pretty perfect for this story. I loved the way the Bee acted in Dirk's body.
What I Disliked: When Gary is a Bee amongst the hive, it wasn't scary, it felt like an old animal documentary that is really corny and not all that interesting.
Recommendations: There's some okay moments but the story overall I can not recommend. It is not the worst but far from the best. I'm not afraid of bees and maybe people who are would enjoy this story a more. I rated Why I'm Afraid of Bees by R. L. Stine 3 out of 5 stars.Here's my full ranking of the 17 Goosebumps books that I have read in order to my favorite to least favorite:Stay Out of the Basement, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, The Haunted Mask, One Day At Horrorland, Night of the Living Dummy, Welcome to Camp Nightmare, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, Say Cheese and Die, Let's Get Invisible, Welcome to Dead House, The Girl who Cried Monster, The Ghost Next Door, Be Careful What You Wish For... ,Why I'm Afraid of Bees, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, Monster Blood And You Can't Scare Me!.
I kind of just wanna write a review full of bee puns but I don't want people to swarm me with comments that might sting.
Also, as much as I love puns, I'm kind of terrible at them. XD BUT I WILL TAKE ANY YOU HAVE PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
This unbeelievable novel is a bit of a Freaky Friday feat. Bee and it is a doozy. Anyone seen My Girl? That's the level of bee-phobia we're talking here.
The book is buzzing with the horror of opting out of your life and regretting it instantly, all in the fuzzy form of Gary the Bee. He has a bit of a tough time, and ultimately realises that maybe being the bees knees is not all it's cracked up to be.
I don't have an issue with bees. Maybe the reason I don't is because this book taught me that bees may actually be bullied teenagers going through a rough patch. I do seem to always feel sorry for the ones who have lost their stingers ...
Has great ideas throughout it but it's not executed the best and drags on at times in my opinions, I also don't get how the main character deals with his situation at the end, How did it became that easy and very convinient? It just ends everything out of nowhere.
Overall, it was fun, not boring atleast, just had some few glaring issues. It was mostly great at the underlying themes and good messages presented rather than a scary story.
This is the only Goosebumps book I can clearly remember reading. It was pretty awesome. About a boy who becomes a bee (in case you couldn't figure that out from the cover). And apparently, even when I was 10 I still thought bees were cool.
The writing in this one was absolutely awful. R.L. Stine must of had a bad writing spell for this one. Also, the idea behind this book was interesting, but it was poorly executed. Not that I'm expecting much in a short middle grade story, but there was TOO many plot holes for my taste for a Goosebumps book. Not to mention the character you follow, Gary, is an awful kid who learned NOTHING from this experience. There wasn't a moral to this story for anyone to learn from, honestly. I would have DNFed this if it wasn't for a buddy read. Avoid this one at all costs.
A solid lesson hidden beneath the story here about appreciating what you have while you have it. This story gave me semi-Honey I Shrunk The Kids vibes and that was cool, too! 3.5 stars but rounding up to a 4 because it reminded me of a time in 5th grade where I could have been in the same situation!
Pues mas que miedo parece una aventura, digo suena interesante ser abeja por unos dias. Supongo que si como el protagonista te dan miedo las abejas, ser una a de ser feo, pero si no, que interesante
Blah, I am so sick that I decided to take today off. With nothing to really do, I also decided to open an early present, which turned out to be five Goosebumps books! Yay! What a great way to spend all day in bed when sick! I rate "Why I'm Afraid of Bees" 4 stars.