It Came From Ohio: My Life As A Writer

by R.L. Stine, Joe Arthur

A portrait of the author of the Goosebumps series as told to Joe Arthur tells what it was like being a kid, how he became a writer, and where he gets his scary ideas. Reprint.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Horror, Middle Grade, Childrens, Writing

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute insights into RL Stine’s life, but mainly written for kids

[Mia Lee Libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

* Pros:
- Biografía muy entretenida y divertida.
- Edición preciosa con fotografías personales del autor.

* Contras:
- Nada malo que alegar.

* Opinión Personal:
Es un libro autobiográfico pero no está redactado por Stine, sino por uno de sus mejores amigos. Está destinado a un público juvenil -como sus novelas-, pero cualquiera puede leerla sin sentirse niño. A mí personalmente me divirtió y fue una lectura muy fluida. Si eres una aficionada como yo de sus obras juveniles, te recomiendo este ejemplar.

[Peter Derk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dude seems like a good dude. Apparently he types with two fingers, which when you consider the man's output, I reckon those fingers are worn down a good inch shorter than they were at their prime.

Just how many books has he written?

Well, that's a tough one. His website says "Over 300," but that's not a very satisfactory answer, right? Don't we all want to know how many with a little more exact-ness than that?

Stay tuned...

[Cameron Chaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did a project on R. L. Stine in 6th grade and this book definitely came in handy. I enjoyed learning all about Stine's life in his own words, especially since I got to find out that he was born and raised a short distance from where I live. Maybe successful writers can come from Ohio after all! Who knew!

I recommend this to any R. L. Stine/Goosebumps fans out there. Also, the hardcover of this book has a cool holographic cover! A gimmick? Yes. Awesome? Also, yes.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a delight, full of photos and artwork, silly anecdotes, and plenty of details about how Stine got to where he is today. It's perfect for a kid who needs to do a project on an autobiography, and it's also a good choice for any kids who think they might want to write in some professional capacity when they grow up.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, in part because of how accessible it is. Stine has written for younger kids, older kids and adults, and he manages to cater to all three of those audiences here just by presenting his story in simple language accompanied by plenty of pictures, including of the title screens of some of his early magazine projects.

I thought it was fascinating to learn more about him, and the book even feels pretty relevant still as it was only published five years or so ago and it talks about the Goosebumps movie, which I’ll admit that I haven’t read.

But most of all, I enjoyed approaching this with a writer’s point of view and from the perspective of a writer. I was fascinated by everything that Stine talked about and it was cool to get a closer, keener idea of what he’s all about.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple young adult autobiography. The style and tone fit perfectly with the Goosebumps formula, right down to the ‘cliff hanger’ chapter endings. Some nice insights into the authors’ plight. Overall a cosy one-sitting read.

[Bhavesh Bhimani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Review: ‘It Came From Ohio: My Life As A Writer’ by R.L. Stine

I think if I ever make a list of my all-time favourite authors, R.L. Stine’s name would easily be on the top five. Even though I don’t read him now, I was absolutely bonkers about his books at one point. In fact, reading the ‘Goosebumps’ and ‘Fear Street’ books with my sister remains one of the most cherished memories of my childhood. I was so fascinated with the series that I had devoured almost every title in about two years and would even carry them with me on train journeys. After comic books I think it was R.L. Stine who became my second love when it came to the world of books.

It was hence an absolutely wonderful experience reading ‘It Came From Ohio: My Life As A Writer’ – the life story of the Goosebumps author (as told to Joe Arthur). I chanced upon this book this weekend and finished it in two days. Reading this was a thrilling, fast-paced ride – just like reading a Goosebumps book back in the day.

The book focuses on R.L. Stine's life, from his childhood in Ohio to his journey of becoming a best-selling children’s author. We learn how Robert Lawrence Stine (yes, that is his full name as he reveals in the first chapter itself) would terrify his younger brother by telling him ghost stories before going to sleep when they were little. Stine one day finds an old typewriter in his attic (which his mother had forbidden him from entering) and thus begins his passion for writing as he creates his own little magazines and funny stories as a little boy and climbs up the ladder in the profession gradually.

In the first few chapters we learn about Stine’s fears, his passion for reading and writing, his best friends, his family, and his first love in his formative years. In fact, the part about Stine’s school life is the best in the book. To know that R.L. Stine was a comic book nerd who hung out with similar boys made me feel very happy about myself for some reason.

We also learn about the author’s inspiration for his stories, characters and titles. The title ‘Goosebumps’, for example, came to Stine whilst he was leafing through a TV guide. The motivation for his stories, meanwhile, came from observing real life people closely and even from certain funny and weird incidents from his own life. Slappy, the evil wooden dummy from Goosebumps, is inspired from Pinocchio – a story that had spooked Stine out as a child.

The latter half of the book focuses on Stine’s life as an adult writer – his struggling days in New York where he lived in a one-room apartment, his time as a writer for multiple magazines and television shows for children, and eventually finding his calling as a popular author.

I found two facets of Stine’s life as a writer pretty inspiring. First was his single-minded devotion to writing constantly in a routine and just enjoying the art in any which he could. Second was how he found his true calling – that of an author of horror stories for children and teens – only when he was in his late 30s. This gave me hope. That I should keep trying and keep working hard on the art I love. And that my true calling might just be round the corner, waiting for me.

I also loved the format of the book. It has been deliberately written in ‘Goosebumps’ style – short, funny sentences, chapters ending in a suspense and an overall fun and light feel to it. I think it has been clearly written this way to connect to its target audience – the Goosebumps fans. The book is also filled with delightful photographs from Stine’s life and the captions and annotations on them really cracked me up.

I cannot end this with mentioning the cover. Oh, it is just amazing! Stine at the centre, surrounded by some of his most famous monsters. What a super idea and execution! Loved it.

Overall, ‘It Came From Ohio: My Life As A Writer’ was a fabulous, superbly interesting and truly funny read and an amazing dive into the life of one of my favourite authors. Reading this made me so incredibly happy. The book had such a charming, nostalgic feel to it. And all those references of the old Goosebumps and Fear Street titles and the mention of their brief plots made me feel like being a child again for a bit.

I give two royal thumbs up to R.L. Stine’s autobiography and recommend it highly to his devoted fans. It is written for them and deserves to be read at least once by his loyal fan base.

I doubt I would be able to enjoy a Goosebumps book again. I have become a stupid adult now, after all. I really wish I could, though. Those were such incredibly amazing days. Each new title would excite me and my sister so much (‘The Ghost Next Door’ ‘I Am Your Evil Twin’ and ‘Let’s Get Invisible’, I think were my favourites and had me completely bowled over). It was fantastic, however, to get a chance to rekindle my Goosebumps love by learning about the man who created this magnificent series.

[Mehsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. R.L. Stine is one of my favourite writers, and so when I heard about this book I just knew I had to have it.

The book isn't written by R.L. Stine, but by a ghostwriter/a friend of his. On the one hand I wasn't entirely happy about it when I found out, but as I started reading I didn't mind it at all, it just felt like R.L. Stine could have written it, it has the exact same feeling, the same Stine-ish wording to it as all his other books have. After a couple of pages I even forgot about the book being ghostwritten. :)

The book focusses on R.L. Stine's life, from kid to bestseller author of many many books (which btw, he typed with only one finger!). We find out about how he got to be a writer, what his fears are, about his family and friends, about his school years. It was all interesting, and I loved that there were photographs of him/family/friends and photographs of his earlier works. I just loved the annotations under the photographs, those really cracked me up at times.

I am glad that he kept it all a bit to the surface, didn't go into it deeper, he did talk about that his move to New York wasn't easy, and he does mention some stuff, but he keeps it on the surface. On the one hand I am curious as to what he has experienced, but on the other hand, this is also a book meant for the teens/kids, and I know that they wouldn't care or would get bored by stuff like that.

I loved the format of the book, and also the font. It gave the feel of a Goosebumps or another one of R.L. Stine's scary books, which is a big plus point to me.

I also have to give a mention to the amazing cover, I love seeing all the monsters on the front with R.L. Stine in the middle of it all!

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to everyone, and I hope that R.L. Stine will keep on writing great books for a long time to come!

Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[Coos Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muchas veces cuando estoy leyendo me detengo a pensar en cómo habrá sido la vida del autor, especialmente si se trata de uno cuyo género predilecto es el horror y tiene varias cosas publicadas. Una vez me puse a escuchar una entrevista que le realizaron a Stephen King, en la que habla justamente sobre la asociación que hacen algunos con la idea de que el autor de terror seguramente tuvo una vida llena de traumas y turbaciones que luego resultaron en las mejores historias de miedo alguna vez publicadas (algo que también se suele conocer como "psicología junguiana"). Quizá no sea necesariamente un evento trágico lo que hizo que el escritor comenzara a escribir estas cosas, como se le atribuyó a King (en el momento de su infancia en el que él tuvo que presenciar la muerte de su amigo), pero quizá haya algo que desencadene el amor o al menos curiosidad por el género. Un estrecho lazo con las películas de clase B, la emoción y ansiedad que genera el contar una historia de fantasmas en medio de la oscuridad, algún que otro cruce con algo del más allá.
La parte verídica de esto es que RL Stine, como un buen asustador, fue un niño asustadizo en su pasado, y que adoraba hacer reír a sus compañeros. Era básicamente una especie de payaso maldito que disfrutaba de hacer que su entorno se desternillara de la risa con sus chistes, o que muriera de miedo con sus relatos de espanto. Me pareció que el libro estaba narrado en un estilo muy informal, muy pueril, y esperaba en cierto modo algo más adulto en vista de que se trata de un trabajo de no ficción, el legado de una vida como escritor profesional.

[Dalia Clovers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encanta leer biografías de escritores y ¡esta es una maravilla! Tiene anécdotas chistosas, fotografías que acompañan al texto y ¿por qué no? consejos para quienes quieran seguir sus pasos en la literatura.

Tengo que admitir que durante mi infancia no fui muy fan de los libros de R.L. Stine, porque las portadas me daban miedo jeje, pero ahora que soy adulta me doy cuenta que éstos son una maravilla y que el autor en realidad es una persona muy graciosa.

Junto con "Mientras Escribo" de Stephen King, recomiendo "Una vida de pesadillas" para quienes quieran conocer a profundidad a R.L. Stine y su amplia trayectoria.

[Silver · Rating 4 out of 5]

PopSugar Reading Challengers
Una novela basada en una persona real

3.5/5
Me gusto mucho leer sobre la vida de R. L. Stine. Saber por ejemplo que es tan malo con el teclado como yo 😂 (escribe con un solo dedo, aunque lo hace a la velocidad de la luz), conocer la inspiración de muchos de sus relatos (¿Sabían que La noche del muñeco viviente surgió del cuento de Pinocho que le leían de niño?) y también que es lo que busca lograr en sus lectores cuando leen uno de sus libros.

“Y ahora ya sí que sólo me quedan dos cosas por decir, muchas gracias a todos y, sobre todo, que tengáis un día ATERRADOR."

[Conan The Librarian]

No soy muy dado a leer biografías, la vida de los autores no me parece tan interesante como sus obras sin embargo he leído algunas como la de Tolkien, por ejemplo, pero cuando me.entere de que existía este libro sabía que tenía que leerlo si o si... Nha! Es mentira, la verdad es que solo me llamó la atención por la portada.

El libro es muy entretenido de leer, está escrito casi, casi como uno de sus propios libros y lleno de anécdotas muy divertidas.

Si alguna vez haz leído alguno de sus libros o haz visto algún capítulo de la serie de TV inspirada en su obra creo que este libro te gustará.

[Louise O'Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insight into R.L.Stine's Life

I was so excited when I found this book. R.L.Stine has been one of my favorite authors since childhood. It was amazing to discover a glimpse of behind the scenes of the real life of the talented Mr Stine, complete with photographs. An absolute pleasure to read, I'd recommend this book to anyone who's a fan.

[Doctor Lawrence Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book all about RL Stines life!

[Joana · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like R.L.Stine, this is a joyfull read. 🤪🤟

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a funny and clever autobiography for children. It keeps them interested and engaged throughout.

[♤Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gratificante saber sobre este gran escritor y como comenzó su gran legado....

[Demetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It Came from Ohio! My Life as a Writer” arrives with the mild-mannered promise of a children’s memoir – quick chapters, bright pacing, a friendly hand on the reader’s shoulder. And yet reread as an adult, with the long afterimage of “Goosebumps” still flickering behind the eyes, it can feel uncannily like one of R. L. Stine’s own set pieces: a door you open because you think you know what’s inside, only to find a quieter, more intimate fright waiting in the dust.

This is the first entry in my Goodreads “Goosebumps! Rewind!” project – a return to the books that trained my nervous system before I had language for it. As a child I came to Stine for the clean shock of the turn, the zing of the last sentence, the reassurance that terror could be packaged into something you could finish before the hallway light went out. The ritual mattered as much as the plot: the cover art as a dare, the lamp as a border of safety, the page-turn as a kind of courage. Coming back now, I find myself rereading not only the stories, but the system behind them – the way fear was measured, distributed, released.

Stine’s origin story is famous and he tells it here with brisk confidence. A forbidden attic. A portable typewriter in a black case. The seven-year-old boy who opens the latch and discovers not a monster but a machine for making them. In the child’s version of this moment, fear dissolves into fate – the day you find the tool that explains you. The adult reader notices the scarier implication: fear is not the intruder in this narrative; it is the organizing principle. The attic is not merely a dare. It is a template: curiosity, dread, then the relief of naming what lives in the dark.

A memoir for young readers has to strike a bargain: honesty without harm, candor without the kind of confession that leaves a child reader stranded. Stine honors that bargain. He is direct about his anxieties, his awkwardness, his early sense of being a watcher rather than a leader. He admits he was not the athletic kid, not the one with the swagger. But he tells it with the smoothness of a seasoned performer, the way someone can recount a hard moment without letting the audience see the bruise. That smoothness is part of the book’s charm and part of its eeriness. You begin to suspect that the same talent that makes his narratives readable also makes his self-portrait controlled.

The early chapters make a case that Stine’s first genre was not horror but comedy. He publishes homemade magazines. He writes jokes that circulate like contraband. A teacher confiscates a piece and reads it aloud, half amused and half admonishing, producing the sentence that hangs over any young writer’s first brush with authority: You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you? The memoir treats this as a formative anecdote, and it is. But read with a psychological, almost diagnostic eye, it is also an early lesson in permissible power: humor as a sanctioned way to pierce a room, to take up space without asking permission.

In high school he writes a skit and experiences the most intoxicating proof a young creator can receive: a room laughing in unison. The line he uses – I really had them laughing – is simple, but it contains an entire future. It reads like triumph. It also reads, with adulthood’s suspicious clarity, like reinforcement learning. A nervous system discovers what response it can reliably evoke, and then it begins building a life around reproducing it. Stine does not psychologize himself; he doesn’t need to. The narrative gives you enough: the fixation on timing, the relief of reaction, the realization that an audience can be managed.

College brings self-invention, and Stine is unusually frank about the artificiality of it. He becomes “Jovial Bob,” a persona with enough volume to cover the quieter person underneath. The name is played for comedy, but the adult rereader can see the mechanism: a mask that permits exposure. “Jovial Bob” can submit, edit, lead; the shy self can watch safely from behind the performance. When Stine becomes editor of “Sundial,” the campus humor magazine, he calls it the scariest thing he ever did. The scariest thing, in this memoir, is almost never a monster. It is the demand to be seen while being responsible for other people’s laughter.

Then comes New York – the city of myth, then the city of rent. Stine’s arrival is narrated without martyrdom but with rueful detail that makes the point: wanting to be a writer is not the same as being able to live as one. He works, scrambles, tries on jobs that feel like miscast roles. His stint as a substitute teacher, described as genuinely terrifying, lands like an accidental prequel. Long before he becomes the architect of children’s dread, he is absorbing the sound of a room full of kids testing boundaries, pleading for attention, improvising identities. He watches the way a classroom’s mood can shift like weather – and the way authority can fail in a sentence.

One of the memoir’s underappreciated pleasures is its attention to the unglamorous middle layer of a writing life – the magazine work, the fan culture, the small circulations that keep a person practicing. A chapter whose title invokes bottle caps insists there is a whole world of communication in tiny, overlooked objects. This is Stine’s deeper thesis: that writing is not thunderbolts; it is exchange. It is the daily proof that someone on the other side is listening. He learns the mechanics of audience trust: clarity, speed, consistency, the way a voice becomes recognizable through repetition.

If “It Came from Ohio!” has a weakness, it is also its intention. It refuses melodrama. Stine does not excavate pain; he converts it into something usable, or he steps around it entirely. There is little about anger, little about depression, little about the messier motivations that many adult memoirs treat as their engine. Even fame, when it arrives, is narrated as logistical multiplication rather than psychic implosion – more travel, more requests, more people in the room. A reader hungry for a darker inner life may feel that something is missing.

But restraint is also the hallmark of Stine’s fiction, and here the memoir makes the ethic explicit. He argues – in his plainspoken way – that the scariest stories are not the bloodiest ones. They are the ones that make you imagine what might happen next. Anticipation is his art. The terror is not in what is shown but in what is withheld. And for children, he insists, fear must be bounded. The pattern is familiar to anyone who grew up on “Goosebumps”: approach the edge, feel the drop in your stomach, then be released by a joke, a twist, a reset. The adult rereader hears something else: a theory of emotional regulation disguised as entertainment.

Read that way, this memoir itself begins to feel like a “Goosebumps” book in formal clothing. It offers short chapters that end with a hook, confessions that pull back at the moment they might become heavy, an insistence on forward motion. It is a haunted-house tour where every room has an exit sign. That is, perhaps, why it can feel very scary: it reveals how early a person can begin building the coping architecture that will later look like a career. Stine’s method is not merely how to write. It is how to contain.

There is, too, a formal humility to the book that deserves mention. Stine writes in a voice pitched to the reader who may be holding this memoir at roughly the same age he first held that attic typewriter in his imagination. The sentences are clean, the anecdotes self-contained, the lessons delivered like candy rather than medicine. The chapter titles perform as headlines; the pacing mimics a series; the prose rarely lingers long enough to let discomfort fully bloom. That economy can feel slight if you come expecting the mess and depth of an adult literary memoir, but the clarity is part of the book’s pact with its audience: it offers reassurance to young writers without demanding that they carry adult burdens.

For an adult rereader, the more unsettling question is what that calibration does to memory. Returning to Stine now, I’m aware of how much my childhood relationship with fear was mediated by his steadying hand. “Goosebumps” never asked me to stare at horror until it curdled into despair; it taught me to flirt with panic, then to laugh, then to turn the page. “It Came from Ohio!” reveals the origin of that pedagogy in miniature. It is not a confessional book, but it is a revealing one, precisely because it treats fear as information, not as pathology.

The memoir becomes most moving when it touches parenthood. Watching his son grow reacquaints Stine with the immediacy of childhood perception – how fear can spring up from a closet, a shadow, a rumor, and how quickly imagination turns ordinary objects into verdicts. Here the book’s mild tone carries an ethical charge. Stine is not writing to impress adult critics; he is writing, implicitly, to keep a promise to the child reader: I will take you to the edge, but I will not abandon you there. The adult rereader feels, unexpectedly, the gravity of that promise.

When “Goosebumps” appears as a concept, Stine treats its birth as both intentional and accidental – a title that captures a bodily sensation, a tone that makes fear feel like a dare you can survive, an approach that fits a cultural moment hungry for safe thrills. The series explodes into television and touring, and the memoir’s tone shifts from buoyant to bemused. Success, he suggests, does not cure the shy self. It does not dissolve anxiety. It simply adds more stimuli. Some of the book’s most revealing material arrives here, in the sideways observations: the fatigue of visibility, the strange intimacy of school gyms, the way children’s questions can be both innocent and unnervingly precise.

Late chapters turn toward the backstage reality of sustained authorship: collaborators, routines, and the infrastructure required to keep the machine running. Stine describes writers’ rituals with affectionate amusement and names the people who steady his work. A reader with a diagnostic eye understands what the book only hints at: ritual is not mere quirk. It is protection. It is how creative people keep the attic door ajar without being swallowed by what’s inside. Even the memoir’s final note – the question of who could play you better than you – reads like a quiet insistence on authorship as self-authorship, the right to narrate one’s own life in one’s own carefully measured tone.

Seen through this lens, the scariest passages are often the calmest ones. Stine describes habits – writing every day, meeting deadlines, keeping chapters short, ending scenes on the hinge of a question – with the serenity of someone describing respiration. It is the serenity of a person who has found a way to make uncertainty behave. As an adult reader, I can’t help hearing an implicit diagnostic logic: avoidance converted into productivity, social anxiety converted into persona, dread converted into structure. Even the famous twist ending, the mischievous last-line rug pull, resembles a form of controlled exposure: you endure the jolt, you laugh, you recover, you learn you can handle it. If the memoir has a ghost, it is that discovery – the moment a child realizes that fear can be administered in doses, and that administering it might become a life’s work.

In later entries of this “Goosebumps! Rewind!” reread, I’ll be looking for how that dosing principle shows up in the fiction – how Stine teaches readers to test their own thresholds, how humor functions as a safety rail, how his monsters are less metaphysical evils than props in a lesson about anticipation. This memoir is the backstage tour. The attractions will come next.

That calibration is the book’s truest subject. It is also the source of my adult unease. It is unnerving to watch fear become a life skill. It is unnerving to see how humor can be both gift and shield. It is unnerving, and oddly consoling, to realize that the stories that scared you as a child may have been teaching you – gently, repeatedly – how to manage your own internal monsters. The memoir’s scares are not jump scares. They are recognition: the moment you understand that the flashlight you trusted in the dark was not only illuminating the hallway, but also training your hand to hold steady.

My rating for “It Came from Ohio! My Life as a Writer” is 78 out of 100: brisk, personable, quietly unnerving in its restraint, and surprisingly rich when reread as a blueprint for how fear and laughter can be forged into craft – and how a kid who once trembled at a closed attic door can grow up to make millions of other children reach for the next page, heart racing, safe in the knowledge that the author is holding the flashlight.

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel, R.L. Stine does a wonderful job of telling his life story. He starts off by telling the reader about his passion for reading and writing stories as a young age. Then he goes onto talk about his experiences writing for newspapers at The Ohio State University. From there he talks about how he got his first novel published and how he went onto write so many scary stories and various series.

This novel would be great for any young reader who is interested in becoming a writer. Stine does a great job of telling us all about the ups and downs he has faced throughout his life and his career. I also believe that story would appeal to students who live in Ohio, especially those who live in the Central Ohio area. It is always exciting to read about someone famous who came from the same place that you grew up in. Finally, I think that almost any student who has read and enjoyed one of his books would love to read about how be became so successful.

[Bannock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trailer: This book was about R.L. Stine's life. In this book, R.L. Stine talks about what he did and how he got to where he is now. He wrote on one page " I'm surprised that I actually made it here." He was also telling me that sometimes in New York he was thinking about giving up on his dream of becoming a world-recognized author. This book will teach you about a lot of things about R.L Stine like how he at in Kremlin, Russia, with the first lady in 2003. It also teaches you how he didn't actually know what to write at first and he didn't start out as a horror writer. In fact, he actually started out as a kid who wrote comics and told his younger brother scary stories. R.L. Stine also tells you how he went to China to sign books and all the kids that got their book signed put their name on a large cloth banner and then after all the signing, they would give it to R.L. Stine.

Review: I think this was an amazing book. It was very good and interesting and I liked how it told me a lot of things I didn't know about R.L Stine such as how he is world-known. I was surprised when he told me that he makes up his stories by looking at things and going back into his memory and looking back at his childhood. He also was a babysitter with his brother and had to take care of his aunt and uncle's children. He said specifically that they were monsters because of how they would fight each other. Over-All I think this book was amazing book.

[Manuel Ernesto · Rating 4 out of 5]

R. L. Stine cuenta cómo se convierte en escritor y su inclinación por las historias de terror para lectores adultos jóvenes y niños. Es un viaje desde los años de estudiante, universitario, profesional, padre y esposo de Stine y todos los sucesos vinculados en su hacer como escritor. No es una biografía mesurada, es una historia corta que pasa como un diálogo donde el escritor relata momentos cruciales de su carrera, relata cómo surgen las ideas para sus historias, cómo surgen los personajes, sus distintos trabajos como escritor, sus momentos de infancia, familia, sus compañeros de estudios, y así de una forma muy agradable Stine nos cuenta sobre tu trayectoria y cómo logra el éxito escribiendo historias de terror para jóvenes y niños.

Un libro que también puede ser considerado como una historia de superación personal, que de alguna forma logra motivar al lector.

Al final de la historia te encuentras con las 20 preguntas más frecuentes hechas al autor.

El libro me encanto, porque sientes la nostalgia de volver a la niñez, la importancia de la familia, la educación y un éxito ganado no fortuito.

[Kevin Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only R.L. Stine can write gripping stories with such a breezy tone. He makes it look so effortless. The end result is that his books are easy to devour. Even his autobiography has the same cliffhanger endings to each chapter that the Goosebumps books are known for. As an adult reading it, it seems a little glib. But, the more I think about it, he's actually pretty forthcoming and reflective, considering his audience, and there are some inspiring anecdotes here for his pre-teen fans. He doesn't shy away from the fact that he was a class clown, he didn't care about studying, he got in trouble a lot, he was pretty nerdy, and, most importantly, he unapologetically pursued his idiosyncratic interests from a young age. He also never gave up on his dreams and always works hard to please his fans. Overall, I imagine it would be a pretty motivating read for a young Goosebumps fan--perfect for a 4th grade biography report.

[Nadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

¨It Came From Ohio¨ was illustrated by the famous author R.L Stine. This book talks about the events that happened in Roberts life and how he got to be the successful writer. As the book progresses along we learn information about the biography of Roberts life. We learn that as a child he will tell him scary stories at night which states why his books are filled with monsters. We also learn when he was older his friend clarified that he should write children´s books and that´s how his career began. Although, as a reader when R.L Stine first wrote his Goosebumps he got many letters that said the his series were boring. But, after a few years R.L Stine began to overcome this and be the Known author of Goosebumps.

I gave this book three stars because, I like How R.L Stine put pictures of the main moments of his life. I also liked the details he puts in his writing, Overall the story was fun to read because of the pictures and also how R.L Stine states the Pro´s and Con´s of the journey of becoming an author. I have to be honest I normally don´t like reading Non-Fiction about a persons life but for this I actually enjoyed it.

I think people who love Non-Fiction and people who love to read R.L Stine´s Goosebumps will enjoy reading this book. I also think people who would love scary movies or stories would love to read this book as well.

[Sabrina Frang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read It Came From Ohio: My Life as a Writer to achieve two objectives: 1) to read something for my monthly nonfiction challenge, and 2) to read something for Old School April.

Who knew that I would absolutely love R.L. Stine's biography? I had an absolute blast with this book. It is both an informative journey through R.L Stine's personal and professional life, and an entertaining look into the hilarious personality of Jovial Bob Stine. As an aspiring writer, I also learned a lot about his writing journey, where he comes up with his ideas, and his writing routine.

Reading this book felt like I was having a conversation with R.L. Stine, and it was conversation that I did not want to end.

If you ever need to read a book about an author that is both a memoir but also a deep dive into their writing process, I highly recommend this book or On Writing: A Memoir by Stephen King.

[Bambee Hendricks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a huge fan of Goosebumps growing up and all the Tv shows and movies that came with it! It was wonderful that my kids fell into loving to read these books as well. Now my favorite part, is that my one kid came across this book in one of those small local book exchange libraries at our park. I still read a chapter book to my kids at night, and they choose this one to be read chapter by chapter each night. It was wonderful to read about one of my lifelong favorite writers. And it was wonderful to read their life to my kids. We all were excited when one of our favorite books or shows, or even movies were mentioned. We were excited to see the pictures and learn about the life of R.L. Stine. Thank you for sharing a life of writing with us and we all look forward to more books to read!

[Saryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo flipas cuando hace mil años que no lees ni un solo libro de Pesadillas pero los buscas y sólo encuentras esta biografía y piensas, ¡necesito saber cómo era ese señor que escribía esas historias tan jefas!

Y no va e incluso su biografía está escrita con esas subidas y bajadas y esas preguntas al final del capítulo que te obligan a leer el siguiente porque somos gatetes siguiendo una cesta de sardinas a su antojo.

Resumiendo: me ha gustado mucho, me ha parecido interesante, escribir 2 libros al día me parece ACOJONANTE, yo qué queréis que os diga pero por Pesadillas empecé a leer como una loca de pequeña AND I THINK IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

[Travis Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like the books Stine is famous for, this one is meant for the 4th grade range. Its filled with a ton of corny, cringy jokes that I'm sure 4th graders would love (although I did legitimately laugh out loud at two jokes). There is plenty of facts and goosebumps trivia sprinkled through out the book (enough to keep adult readers pushing through). If a goosebumps fan has to choose a biography or nonfiction book for a school reading assignment I think this would be a PERFECT choice. He even keeps the chapters super short to appeal to his target audience.


R.L. Stine seems like a very down to earth, nice guy. He also seems appreciative of his fans which is awesome. Well done sir.

[Serenity · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this small autobiography/memoir about R. L. Stine! It starts with him as a kid and takes you all the way to the time the first Goosebumps movie came out in theaters. I enjoyed getting to know a little about him, but I will say this book was definitely written with a kid audience in mind. I wish it had gone a lot more in depth and didn't make his life seem so happy-go-lucky, as if everything just came so easily to him with no bumps in the road. But for what it was, I did enjoy it!

My second book completed for the readathon!