Night of the Squawker is the eighteenth book in the Goosebumps SlappyWorld book series.[1] It was released on April 4, 2023.
The cover illustration depicts a monstrous blue bird with glowing red eyes, a red beak and giant fangs breaking through a chain link fence with an explosion behind it. The sign "Experimental Area" can be seen hanging on a chain on the fence which has also been broken by the bird.
Blurb[]
Cooper Klavan and his sister, Anna, are fishing with their parents at a woodland pond when they come across an injured bird. Anna, a huge animal lover, insists on taking it home to rehabilitate. But the bird really does not want to be rescued. It bites Anna. Soon, she is behaving very strangely: perching high up in trees and gathering sticks to hide in her room, Cooper doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, but his sister seems to be going to the birds.
Plot[]
Cooper Klaven is shooting a zombie movie out in the woods with his friends, hoping to submit it to a film festival. His younger sister Anna interrupts their shoot to bring Cooper along on a family fishing trip. His parents love the outdoors but he's not fond of it and isn't looking forward to this trip. When Anna gets lost, she finds a strange ugly bird that seems to be a pain. She loves nursing animals back to health, so she tries to help the bird only for it to bite her. She is thankfully okay and they take the bird home, which she names Oggie.
When one of his friends gets sick, they have Anna replace him as one of the zombies in their movie. The shoot goes well but Anna starts to randomly peck at the dirt. At home, she continues to act strange while the bird occasionally goes crazy and attacks them. That night, Cooper goes to Anna's room to look into the bird's loud noises and discovers it under her bed even though the bird has been sitting on her head.
The next morning during breakfast, an egg goes missing and it turns out Anna is sitting on it. Cooper tries to find out what kind of bird Oggie is through a bird app but comes up short. He raises his concerns to his parents, but they say not to worry, as Anna is just going through a phase. Later, Cooper sees Anna acting like a bird and decides to record it. When asked about this, Anna acts as if nothing is wrong.
They head out to film more of the zombie movie but Anna runs off and ends up perching up in a tree. They call the fire department only for Anna to vanish from the tree and appear on the ground as if nothing had happened. On top of that, there are feathers in her hair. Cooper decides to ditch the zombie movie and make a movie about Bird Anna instead.
They go up to her room and see her about to jump out the window. They stop her and she still acts is nothing is going on. Oggie jumps out the window but Dad saves it. During breakfast the next day, the family cat attacks Anna. That night, Cooper sees Anna leaving the house with a big trash bag. She gathers some sticks and leaves and goes home to dump them in her closet to make a nest. The next morning, Cooper tells Dad what is going on but Anna denies it and he doesn't believe him. He tries to show them the nest but it's gone. She explains that she has been building a nest for Oggie. Cooper remembers his video and tries to show it off but his phone is gone. They find it on Anna's desk but the video had been deleted. While talking about this with his friends, he decides he must get rid of Oggie. That night he does so and manages to throw him out the window. Anna sees this and is so upset she bites Cooper. Anna backs off and Cooper goes to bed. The next morning, Cooper finds a box of worms and starts eating them. He also notices he is sprouting feathers now, just like Anna.
The parents see this and reveal that the Oggie didn't cause all this, they did. They had been giving the kids this special Power Juice which was actually a formula they had been working on for years. It had been turning them into birds. They had always longed to be birds and now through the juice, they can all be a bird family. The family then flies out the window.
Audiobook[]
| Audiobook | Release date | Length | Narrated by | Published by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
April 4, 2023 | 2 Hours, 57 Minutes | Joe Fria, Barrett Leddy | Scholastic Inc. |
Trivia[]
- Early website listings for this book featured its original title, Feathers!
- While "Night of the" has been used in many titles, this book's title is a likely reference to the 1972 horror film, Night of the Lepus, as both deal with mutated animals.
- This is the second book to feature a bird that escapes an experimental area. The first being Bugsy from Night of the Giant Everything.
- This book's plot shares some similarities with a few previous Goosebumps books like Chicken Chicken, The Lizard of Oz, and My Hairiest Adventure. Each book features children who begin to transform into animals.
- This book was possibly inspired by a conversation R.L Stine and Tim Jacobus had in 2021, where the two of them talked about the artwork for How I Learned to Fly. Whilst talking about the artwork, Stine notes that he should’ve made a book about birds, of which this book is about.[2]
- While it is highly coincidental, this book's title is similar to that of the title of the nineteenth book in the Bone Chillers series, The Night Squawker.
- Slappy's introduction introduces another member of his family, his brother Sloppy the Dummy, who is messy and smelly.
- This book references the iPhone, Minecraft, Frosted Flakes, and Frosted Mini-Wheats.
- At 119 pages, this is the shortest book in the Goosebumps SlappyWorld series.
References[]
| Goosebumps SlappyWorld series | ||
| #01 Slappy Birthday to You | #08 The Dummy Meets the Mummy! | #15 Judy and the Beast |
| #02 Attack of the Jack | #09 Revenge of the Invisible Boy | #16 Slappy in Dreamland |
| #03 I Am Slappy's Evil Twin | #10 Diary of a Dummy | #17 Haunting with the Stars |
| #04 Please Do Not Feed the Weirdo | #11 They Call Me the Night Howler! | #18 Night of the Squawker |
| #05 Escape from Shudder Mansion | #12 My Friend Slappy | #19 Friiight Night |
| #06 The Ghost of Slappy | #13 Monster Blood Is Back | SE Slappy, Beware! |
| #07 It's Alive! It's Alive! | #14 Fifth-Grade Zombies | |