And we've made it to the end of the thirties in Goosebumps. It's been... interesting to say the least. We've faced off with dummies, evil sponges, stench monsters, robot kids, and the biggest surprise, a quality sequel. So, with so many strange adventures under our belt, it seems only fitting then to take a jungle expedition with book number thirty nine. It's How I Got My Shrunken Head AKA Jungle 2 Jungle.
COVER STORY
this cover's got all of the Tim Jacobus touches. Warping? Check? Checkerboard floor? Check. Converse Hi-Tops? Oh you better believe that's a check. Also go nondescript university! And then there's the shrunken head, which honestly doesn't look all that shrunken. It's actually kinda the size of a regular head, only greener and more creepy. That seems like a bit of a glaring error there, Tim. Regardless, it's much like Say Cheese and Die in that it mixes simple quaintness with unsettling creepiness, but on a far less freakish scale to that book.
STORY
Our protagonist is Mark Rowe, who Stine likes to make sure to remind us, is a bit on the chubby side. He's also a gamer, because of course he is. His favorite game in particular is a game called Jungle King, which from the description, kind of almost sounds like Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. That would have been out by then. Mark gets so worked up over this game that he'll often scream "Kah-Lee-Ah!". He doesn't really know how or why he screams it, it's just sort of his catchphrase. After driving his friends away with his devotion to the game, he hears someone at the door. He opens it, and is greeted by a head. A shrunken head to be precise.
It's given to him by a woman named Carolyn who says that it's a gift from his aunt Benna, a famous explorer. I guess Stine's version of a Jane Goodall-type character. She's deep in the jungles of the island of Baladora, on an expedition. Mark is amazed at his new gift, and goes to sleep after looking at it all night. That night he thinks he hears whispers from the head, but it's just his eight-year old sister Jessica playing tricks on him. She's freaked out by the head, but being a jealous sibling, wishes she had one of her own. After that incident, Mark goes back to bed, but then sees the head, eyes aglow, floating in the air with a sinister looking grin. Which means it's that time of the book. Where the kid gets his family to see, and conveniently the head is back to where it was, making everyone mad at the protagonist. Oh my god, I've really reviewed almost forty of these books.
After that incident, Mark gets the news that he gets to visit Aunt Benna in Baladora. He takes his shrunken head and heads on to the plane with Carolyn. Eventually they arrive on Baladora and are greeted not by Aunt Benna, but a man in a lab coat named Dr. Richard Hawlings and his darter Kareen. They tell Mark that Aunt Benna has been missing for weeks. But they needed to bring him here to find her, because he just so happens to have "Jungle Magic". Instead of wanting to know what the hell they mean by jungle magic, they all break for now instead. The do eventually explain that when Mark was four, Aunt Benna told him the secret of Jungle Magic, but it was so long ago now that Mark has no idea what Aunt Benna actually said.
Still confused by this whole thing, Mark takes a walk to get his bearings, only to end up walking into a room filled with shrunken heads. He manages to find a journal written from Aunt Benna that mentions that Dr. Hawlings can't be trusted. He's out to find the jungle magic, and if he gets it, he'll take over the world, I guess. He runs off, only to be caught by Kareen, who claims she has no idea about her father being evil, and she likes Benna. And before you can say "RED ALERT! YOU'RE FALLING FOR A TRAP! PIVOT THE OTHER WAY!" Mark believes her, because there's still half a book left. Mark grabs his shrunken head and runs off into the jungle to search for Aunt Benna.
He falls asleep and dreams about shrunken heads floating around him, telling him to hurry up. He wakes up, only to see himself almost completely covered with red ants. He panics and starts screaming "Kah-Lee-Ah" again, and this time it makes the ants leave him. He figures that maybe that's how he knows that word, that maybe it's the jungle magic. When he sees his shrunken head's eyes glow, it confirms it for him. He treks some more, but ends up caught in quicksand. He uses his magic words, but nothing happens. Before he sinks all the way in, he holds up his shrunken head, which causes vines to grab him and pull him out of the muck. And then he gets attacked by a tiger.
But before this becomes an episode of "fast animals, slow children" Mark uses the jungle magic again to help him fall into a pit where the Tiger can't reach him. Suddenly Kareen shows up to rescue him. They manage to find Aunt Benna, who panics when she sees Kareen. Mark reveals to her that he knows how to use Jungle Magic, mentioning the word in front of Kareen, like an idiot would. And shocker of shockers, this was all a trap by Kareen, who leads her father and Carolyn (who was also in on it) to their location. They threaten Benna and Mark, but the two try to make a run for it. Unfortunately they still end up captured. He locks them in a room for a bit, giving Aunt Benna an idea. Later, Hawlings leads them outside to a pile of shrunken heads.
He threatens them some more, but neither Mark nor Benna will tell him how to use the jungle magic. So he threatens to shrink their heads. Mark tries to use the shrunken head, but it gets knocked out of his hand into the convenient pile of heads. Benna and Hawlings fight with each other while Mark dives into the head pile. He finds the right one and says "Kah-Lee-Ah" again. The magic works, as it causes Dr. Hawlings, Kareen and Carolyn to shrink down to the size of mice. The tiny villains panic, then run off into the jungle, never to be seen again.
TWIST ENDING
Mark and Aunt Benna return home after this whole ordeal. Benna also tells Mark that she cured him of the jungle magic, and that they never have to worry about this level of a threat again. Mark still gets to keep the shrunken head. He takes it to school with him, but then all of a sudden the head starts talking. It really wants to tell everyone about the part with the tiger.
CONCLUSION
How I Got My Shrunken Head is actually not too bad. Unlike the last book The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, it feels like Stine had a plot that he stuck through with this one. It didn't do something like focus so much on the jungle magic only to change trajectory by the book's end. Mark's a rather likable protagonist, if a bit on the dim side. There are still some flaws. I think they should have saved Dr. Hawling's big evil turn until the end for added effect. Once you know he's evil, you're just waiting for the moment where Kareen turns on Mark. Thankfully the book still gives us some exciting scenes, and even a few legitimately creepy moments like the ants and the quicksand scene. For our final book in the thirties, I was expecting something mediocre, and I end with something pretty good. Good work Jovial Bob. How I Got My Shrunken Head gets an A-.
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