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Let's Get Invisible!

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Book

Let's Get Invisible! is the sixth book in the original Goosebumps book series. It was first published in 1993.

The original cover illustration features Max Thompson looking through a mirror in the attic. Half his body is invisible.

The Classic Goosebumps cover illustration features a boy whose head has vanished under the light of the mirror.

Blurb

DISAPPEARANCES CAN BE DEADLY.

On Max's birthday, he finds a sort of magic mirror in the attic. It can make him become invisible. So Max and his friends start playing now you see me, now you don't. Until Max realizes that he's losing control. Staying invisible a little too long. Having a harder time coming back. Getting invisible is turning into a very dangerous game. The next time Max gets invisible, will it be... forever?

Plot

Max Thompson is hosting his birthday party at his home. Among the guests are his younger brother Noah "Lefty" Thompson, who is left-handed and his three friends Zack, who has a strange haircut: one side of his head has a short buzz cut, while the other side is combed back long. Erin, who has a loud voice, and April, who's incredibly shy. The party is almost finished when Whitey, Max's dog, runs to the attic. While Max, alongsode Lefty, Erin, and April look for him, they find a large, old mirror. Max pulls the chain of an overhead light. As soon as he does this, he disappears, much to the shock of April, Lefty, and Erin.

When the lights go out, Max reappears. His friends and brother insist that he became invisible, although he refuses to believe them. That night, Max returns to the attic to inspect the mirror. Lefty joins Max on this exploration. Both boys want to make themselves invisible. The boys turn on the light and they both disappear. After ten minutes, they begin to feel weak. They turn off the light, but it takes slightly longer for them to become visible. Max opts to use the mirror to prank Zack.

The next day, Max goes invisible again to Zack's horror, and Lefty's amusement, but has an even more difficult time returning to visibility than he did the previous two times. Erin and April arrive soon afterwards, and Erin suggests that they hold a contest to see who can be invisible the longest. April, wanting to stay visible, chooses to time her friends. Zack, Erin and Max each take a turn, each staying invisible longer than the other, but having an increasingly difficult time appearing again. Before Lefty gets a chance to go invisible, his and Max's grandparents Grammy and Poppy, arrive for dinner. The kids decide to postpone the contest until another day. During dinner, Lefty gets up and leaves the table. A while later, Max sees a floating fork and deduces that Lefty made himself invisible, and forces him to become visible again before his parents or grandparents realize what's going on.

That night, Erin calls Max by telephone. Erin tells Max to take the mirror to school for the science fair, but he refuses. Max goes to the attic and looks at his reflection in the mirror. He hears his name being whispered from the mirror, but isn't sure if it's coming from the mirror, or if he's imagining it. Frightened, Max runs back to his room and locks himself in until the next morning. When he wakes up, Max discovers that Lefty became invisible again. Suddenly Lefty becomes completely unresponsive, and a panicked Max takes Lefty to the mirror to become visible again. When Lefty finally becomes visible again, Max notices he's acting strangely and looks different. Their mother notices that Lefty looks different too, but shrugs it off as Lefty simply having done his hair differently.

As the family goes away for the weekend, Max decides that the mirror could be dangerous, and calls his friends to call off the invisibility contest. However, after he and Lefty return, Zack, Erin, and April return to Max's house because Lefty called them to revive the contest, much to Max's shock, because Lefty isn't even home at the time. Even April wants to become invisible this time. However, as she takes her turn Whitey the dog rushes into the room, and he becomes invisible too, forcing Max to quickly make both of them become visible again, much to April's chagrin. During Erin's turn, she remains invisible for several minutes, but then she becomes unresponsive. It turns out she had gone downstairs to get a Coke. She becomes unresponsive a second time, and Max hurriedly brings her back. When Erin becomes visible again, Max notices that something has changed about her appearance and behavior, although Erin denies anything is different.

Zack remains invisible for almost fifteen minutes. During this time, he leaves the house and plays a prank on an elderly neighbor, Mr. Evander by juggling his tomatoes, in front of him, much to his shock. But then, he put the tomatoes down when Mr. Evander's wife looks up, causing her to think her husband is delusional. As Zack and the others laugh about the prank, Zack suddenly becomes completely unresponsive, and Max runs to the attic and forces him to become visible again. Strangely, Max discovers that Zack's unusual hairstyle has seemingly been reversed and he's acting different, although Zack, like Erin, also denies anything is wrong or different with him. Max wants to just end the whole thing right then and there, but Erin and Zack refuse to let him back out, and they use the mirror to make him invisible. As the minutes roll by, Max begins to feel weak. He asks to be made visible again, but Zack and Erin don't pay attention to him. Just as Zack finally agrees to bring Max back, Max's mother suddenly appears, questioning what the kids have been doing in the attic, and briefly admiring the mirror. The next thing Max knows, a haze appears, followed by a white light and he realizes he's in the mirror now, and a figure approaching Max; it's his own reflection!

Max's reflection tells him that Zack and Erin have been replaced by their reflections, and they are now locked in the mirror, and now Max's reflection is prepared to make the same switch with Max! Max manages to make a run for it, and makes it back to the attic, as the duplicates of Erin and Zack make Max visible again. They question if the switch was made, but Max's reflection appears in the mirror, and tells them that the real Max escaped. The duplicates of Erin and Zack make Max invisible again. Max attempts to flee the attic, but he is caught by the reflections. He asks April for help, but she is also caught, and completely confused as to what is going on.

Unexpectedly, Lefty enters the attic and mistaking Max's reflection for him, throws a softball to him, breaking the mirror in the process. The reflections are sucked into the mirror's pieces, and Lefty clings to the door to avoid getting sucked in himself, and the real Erin and Zack are brought back into the real world.

The group clean up the mess and lock the door. Max and his brother decide to play catch. But to his horror, Max notices that Lefty is throwing right handed.

Reprints and rereleases

Book Release date Type Media

2003 - 2007 reprint series

 September 2003 Standalone Paperback

Vanishing Collection

 November 2004 Collection Paperback

Classic Goosebumps

 April 28, 2015 Standalone Paperback
  • The Classic Goosebumps reprint was released as a tie-in to the Goosebumps film.

Differences

  • The Super Nintendo reference is removed.
  • In the original printing, Erin says they could win a gift certificate to "Video World". The reprint changes this to "Pizza Planet".
  • "I wanted to watch the Terminator movie I'd rented" is changed to "I wanted to watch a Terminator movie". Curiously, "They didn't like the Terminator movie" is changed to "They didn't like the movie"
  • "Mom tossed up her hands and said something silently up to the sky, the way she always does when she’s very pushed out of shape about something" changed pushed to "bent".
  • “Who did it belong to?” is changed to “Whom did it belong to?”
  • "Me either" is changed to "Me neither"
  • "We all stared from the spot where we thought Zack was standing to the mirror" is changed to ""We all stared at the spot where we thought Zack was standing to the mirror"

International releases

Classic Goosebumps


Differences

  • In Russia, this is the first book in the original series.
  • In Portugal, this is the seventeenth book in the original series.
  • In France, this is the fourth book in the series.
    • Max is called "Paul."
  • In Israel, this is the twenty-seventh book in the original series.

Merchandise

Some pieces of apparel used the back tagline from the book, however, they replaced the word "deadly" with "scary".

Television adaptation

Let's Get Invisible! was adapted into an episode of the Goosebumps TV series, as the thirteenth episode of season two. The exclamation mark was omitted from the title.

Audiobook

In September of 2022, this book was given an Italian audiobook adaptation.

Audiobook Release date Length Narrated by Published by
December 03, 2024 3 hours, 22 minutes Aaron Landon Scholastic Inc.
September 2022 2 hours, 53 minutes Antonio Catalano Mondadori Libri S.p.A.

Artwork

Conceptual

Trivia

  • The cover artist, Tim Jacobus, did not add the cobwebs or spider in the original painting. It was added in post by an unknown artist, presumably a Scholastic employee. The 2003 reprint did not include these changes.
  • Stine has said he's fond of this book — and that parts of it were inspired by the 1990 film Flatliners.[1]
  • Although it isn't a sequel to Let's Get Invisible!, the Goosebumps Series 2000 book Ghost in the Mirror follows a similar plot with children being switched with creatures from an evil mirror.
  • This book references The Terminator, Super Nintendo, X-Force, Coke, Twister, Life magazine, People magazine, Saturday Night Live and Gap.
  • The title of this book may be a spoof of the 1981 Olivia Newton-John song, "Physical".
  • At 139 pages, this is the longest book in the original series.
  • First editions of this book do not feature a number on the spine. This would be the final book to do so.
  • The concept of the mirror reflections trying to take over people's lives may have taken inspiration from "Mirror Image", an episode from the 1959 TV show The Twilight Zone.
  • Whitey was likely named after a dog of the same name that R.L. Stine's family owned when he was a child and was mentioned in It Came From Ohio!.
  • Tim Jacobus has said that this is his least favorite cover he did. [2]

References in other Goosebumps media

Goosebumps The Game - Mirror Demon

The mirror and mirror demon as it appears in the game.

  • In Goosebumps: The Game, the mirror appears with a mirror demon. After the demon's defeat, a copy of the book itself appears and can then be collected as an item in the player's inventory. The book's manuscript also appears later. 
  • This book's back tagline, DISAPPEARANCES CAN BE DEADLY, is used as a caption in the Monster Survival Guide.

References

  1. ↑ "I always liked Let's Get Invisible. It was actually inspired by the movie Flatliners." (Twitter) (mirror)
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uSN72ae1B8
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