Slappy in Dreamland is the sixteenth book in the Goosebumps SlappyWorld book series, and the fifteenth book in the Living Dummy saga. It was published in 2022.
The cover illustration depicts Slappy the Dummy crawling out from under a bed with a pink blanket, his eyes glowing red. The words "SLAPPY IS HERE" are scratched into the bed's footboard.
Blurb
Richard Hsieh's mom studies dreams, and one day, they decide to hook Richard's new Slappy doll up to the dream machine as a joke. All of a sudden, Richard starts having nightmares of Slappy coming to life and wreaking havoc. But they're only dreams, right? Except, when his cousin Willow comes to visit, she also dreams of Slappy. It's impossible! But when Slappy threatens to invade more kids' dreams, they'll have to figure out how to defeat him before he becomes a dream master.
Plot
Richard Hsieh is a shy boy who has been given Slappy by his father, who found him in the back of a hardware store he manages. Richard talks to Slappy often, which concerns his father but mom thinks it's healthy for kids to have imaginary friends. One day Richard tags along with her to her job working at a sleep-lab at the hospital, which helps people with sleep problems.
For fun, Richard wants to hook up the dream monitoring machine to Slappy. They are shocked to see that the machine detects brain waves in him, even though he's supposed to be a lifeless dummy. While they look at the machine to see what is wrong, Richard is told that her cousin Willow is coming to stay for a few days while her parents are on a business trip. She is the opposite of him, being very energetic, which causes friction between them.
She is always messing with him, such as when she gets him in trouble with the teacher, playing a prank that he is blamed for. After this, he wants a way to pay her back. That night, he has a dream where Slappy comes to life and bites him. When he wakes up, his arm is sore. He tells his family about this, but they think it's just a dream that means nothing.
He soon has a dream where he is in his mom's sleep lab, and she turns into Slappy as he uses the electrodes of the machine on him. When he wakes up, his hair is standing on end like he's been shocked. He tells Willow about his dream, and she reveals she also had a Slappy nightmare where he took over the school bus, and it split into pieces. They then discover that a puzzle they had been working on has been torn up, just like the bus in Willow's dream.
During frog dissection in biology class later that day, Slappy appears and demands that Richard eat the frog to prove his loyalty. After some threats, he does so. This turns out to be a dream, as his teacher Miss Deaver says he fell asleep. His frog appears to be gone, but they find it under the table. At home, Mom suggests putting Slappy in the closet as it seems to be the cause of his nightmares. He tries to do so but Slappy can't be found, until he appears, alive and talking to Richard.
Slappy forces him to sneak into school and demands he vandalize a mural he and Willow were working on for the local zoo. When Richard refuses, Slappy starts to smother him in paint. This also turns out to be a dream and Willow wakes him up. It turns out they both had the exact same dream. While looking over Slappy, they discover a slip of paper with strange words written on it. It says they will bring Slappy to life, but they don't buy it and they are spoken anyway.
The next morning, Slappy is at the foot of his bed. Willow swears she didn't put him there. At school, they find that the mural has been vandalized, just like in their dream. Miss Deaver comes in to see it, but Willow comes up with a lie to cover their tracks and make it seem like an accident. When they get home, they find that Slappy has paint on him. A few days later, Richard attends the birthday party of his school lab partner Brandy. She is having a talent show there and ask Richard to bring Slappy and do an act for them. He reluctantly agrees.
Richard goes up and Slappy starts talking on his own. Slappy tells them all to go sleep and suddenly all the kids do so. Slappy wakes Richard up and forces him to ruin Brandy's presents and eat the cake. When Brandy's mom comes in, Slappy has him throw the cake at her. Right as he is about to do it, he wakes up, with that having been a dream. But everyone else did fall asleep along with him, and Slappy is spotted in the corner with ruined cake on his lap.
The kids all claim to have had a Slappy nightmare, and Willow wonders what they're going to do now. Richard is blamed for everything and is grounded by his parents. They force him to stash Slappy in a box in the basement, which Richard doesn't mind. That weekend, Richard's class goes on an overnight trip to the zoo. At night, he finds that Slappy somehow got into his sleeping bag. He finds a rope, puts Slappy into his backpack, and ties up the backpack to keep him in there.
Despite this, Richard is later woken up by Slappy. All the other kids wake up, but seem to be controlled by Slappy, walking like zombies. They are taken to the tiger exhibit, and two zoo workers show to up save them. Miss Deaver finds out about this and gets mad, but Richard and Willow don't tell anyone the truth as no one will believe them. The next morning, they go home and Richard asks his mom to take him back to her lab, and put him and Slappy up to the dream machine.
Richard figures that hooking Slappy up to the machine earlier gave him the power to invade dreams, even when he was asleep. Richard thinks if they do it again but Richard to it, he can into Slappy's dreams and defeat him there. Mom agrees to this, as this could get him over his Slappy dreams. This works and he ends up in Slappy's dream. He pulls out the slip of paper with the words on it and reads them, thinking it will get rid of Slappy's dream powers. Everything fades, and Richard wakes up in his room, assuming he was taken home after falling asleep.
However, he discovers there was a mix-up and he has switched bodies with Slappy, with Slappy now in his. Slappy in Richard's body walks away, and says "Pleasant dreams, dummy!".
Audiobook
| Audiobook | Release date | Length | Narrated by | Published by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
March 1, 2022 | 2 hours, 44 minutes | Joe Fria and Parry Shen | Scholastic Inc. |
Trivia
- This is the second book in the Living Dummy saga where the plot involves Slappy and dreams, the first being the Goosebumps Series 2000 book, Slappy's Nightmare. The concept of Slappy going inside someone's dreams was previously featured in Download and Die! from the Goosebumps comic series, which itself is similar to the overall plot of the Nightmare on Elm Street film franchise.
- The title might be a reference to the 1905 comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Windsor McCay.
- The title might also be a reference to Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, commonly referred to as just Alice in Wonderland.
- The book references A Wrinkle in Time, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, Mother Goose, The Beatles and YouTube,
- At one point Slappy states "I walk. I talk. I stalk", possibly a reference to the front tagline of the first Night of the Living Dummy.
- This is the first book in the Living Dummy where the protagonist already owns Slappy at the start of the story.
- This book reveals that Slappy still has a sort of consciousness when is not "alive".
- Miss Deaver shares the same last name as Granny Deaver from the Goosebumps Triple Header story "Ghost Granny".
Errors
- The synopsis differs from the final release. In the synopsis, it's Richard's dad who studies dreams. In the book, his dad works at a hardware store. It's Richard's mom who studies dreams.
- In chapter 24, it says "You can be gounded when you get back", when it should say "grounded".
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 | |