Hamish's Adolescent Novel 3/5

Goosebumps

How I got my Shrunken Head

Written by R.L. Stine, How I got my Shrunken Head is a young adolescent novel written in third person narration for the entire duration of the story, and following conventional narrative structure with an orientation, complication and resolution. 

The story begins by introducing the main character, Mark, who is an avid 12 year old video game player who has a fascination with wildlife and jungles which was predominately established from the influence of his Aunty Carolyn who works on a remote island as a scientist. Mark is given a present from her, which is leathery shrunken head which unaware to him at the time, possesses a mysterious power. Mark finds himself travelling over to the island where his aunt is located on to visit her, but on his arrival, he is greeted by his Aunty Carolyn’s colleagues who explain that she has gone missing on the island. 

Mark eventually finds his Aunt’s journal which explains that her colleagues are evil, and are trying to find and capture this mysterious and magical power which has been placed in the shrunken head that Mark now has in his possession. 

Mark escapes from his Aunt’s colleagues who were trying to detain him, and attempting to extract the magic from his shrunken head. When he escapes he finds his aunt deep in the jungle and saves her. Along the way he encounters and overcomes various obstacles like giant ants that attack him, and also the deception of his Aunt’s colleagues. 

This book would suite a middle to upper primary reader as it is quite an enjoyable book to read that is fast paced, utilizing a simple language structures. Stine, like fellow children’s author Morris Gleitzman, uses simple and short sentences in is novels. This basic writing style used will help a young developing reader to grasp and develop a better understanding of literacy skills. This allows students to still learn about the grammatical aspects of literacy in a meaningful light when reading such a book as this one, because students are engaged into the narrative of the novel, with specific parts of the book being able to be analysed in further detail to improve grammatical abilities.