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Are You Afraid of the Dark? #1
Tale of the Sinister Statues
Dustin Strauss and his sister, Brianne, are sure something weird is going on at their local museum. Their friend Tim disappeared after he was caught drawing a mustache on a statue. The new security guard looks like an ancient warrior. Every day a different statue is missing. And then there's the curator, Thaddeus Stone, who hates kids and spends his nights working in the museum...
When the class bully disappears, Dustin and Brianne plan to sneak into the museum to look for proof they can show to the police. But a terrifying chase through the darkened museum only brings them face-to-face with an ancient evil!
When the class bully disappears, Dustin and Brianne plan to sneak into the museum to look for proof they can show to the police. But a terrifying chase through the darkened museum only brings them face-to-face with an ancient evil!
- GenresHorrorParanormalFiction
128 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 1995
2 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
John Peel
441 books167 followersJohn Peel is the author of Doctor Who books and comic strips. Notably, he wrote the first original Doctor Who novel, Timewyrm: Genesys, to launch the Virgin New Adventures line. In the early 1990s he was commissioned by Target Books to write novelisations of several key Terry Nation Dalek stories of the 1960s after the rights were finally worked out. He later wrote several more original Daleks novels.
He has the distinction of being one of only three authors credited on a Target novelisation who had not either written a story for the TV series or been a part of the production team (the others were Nigel Robinson and Alison Bingeman).
Outside of Doctor Who, Peel has also written novels for the Star Trek franchise. Under the pseudonym "John Vincent", he wrote novelisations based upon episodes of the 1990s TV series James Bond Jr..
He has the distinction of being one of only three authors credited on a Target novelisation who had not either written a story for the TV series or been a part of the production team (the others were Nigel Robinson and Alison Bingeman).
Outside of Doctor Who, Peel has also written novels for the Star Trek franchise. Under the pseudonym "John Vincent", he wrote novelisations based upon episodes of the 1990s TV series James Bond Jr..
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 16, 2024
What a great start to the series! This book was loaded with humor but still maintained a spooky vibe, especially toward the end. I’d say it was very close to the perfect blend between funny, scary, and wholesome. Definitely not as juvenile as other middle grade books, this felt like it was geared for a little bit older kids. Overall, very entertaining and enjoyable.
November 1, 2024
Based on the Snick TV series, this set of books kind of went backwards from TV to books, which is a definite lowering of the standard that I don’t really approve of.
In the show, and in the book, a bunch of kids would get together in the woods, and one of them would tell a spooky story, initiated by throwing flash powder on the campfire they all sat around. They called themselves The Midnight Society, and while this is great and a total fantasy for kids, I can’t imagine a bunch of kids getting together and actually doing this. There’s no way a kid would do this kind of homework on the regular. You can barely get a kid to do 15 minutes of math worksheets let alone come up with an entire narrative about a haunted laser tag or whatever. Hell, you can’t even get adults to come to a writing workshop with 7 pages every other week.
The Sinister Statues book starts off with these three kids, they hit the museum, and one of the kids starts drawing mustaches on a bunch of the old statues. The museum curator catches him and is pissed, and I’m very much team curator at this point. This little dickhead is using a marker to draw mustaches on ancient art, and the other kids are like, “It’s no big deal, they’ll wipe right off.” Seriously? And even if they will, what gives you the right to deface, or reface, statues?
I think one good thing about museums is that they are so fucking boring that, for the most part, influencers don’t do stupid shit in them, right? Or am I just not being exposed to the right/wrong kind of influencers? Are there people doing stupid dances in front of the prairie dioramas? Are there influencers like the ones in the hiking world that insist wandering nature with a bluetooth speaker blasting is an acceptable way to “enjoy nature?” Are there art viewers doing the same thing?
Speaking of boring museum shit, man, what becomes of diorama makers in the age of AI, eh? Before, I guess this was the best way to depict the average cave man’s life or whatever, but now it’s like 10 minutes of work for someone with rudimentary knowledge of cave men and boom, you’ve got a cg image that pretty much does the job, certainly as good as the papier mache stuff they’re always making where boulders never look right.
The curator does the thing where he’s like, “Because you defaced these statues, I’ll make you do work for me the rest of the day.” Which probably doesn’t happen too often in real life, right? If I caught someone carving swastikas in a library book, I wouldn’t be like, “Now you’ll come shelve books for the rest of the day” because am I supposed to trust this person, who has clearly demonstrated they don’t give a fuck about books, to shelve them properly? And even if they strive to do it right, it’s a ton of work on my part to monitor them. This seems really stupid on my part, I’d rather just have him pay a fine and pick up garbage on the highway, thanks. I mean, even if you fuck up picking up trash, we’re not really worse off. Maybe this is what “fostering youth” is all about, but…oh, there’s another thing I don’t like about it: Why is the punishment for defacing a statue doing MY job? That implies that I’m doing my job as a punishment. Which I sort of am. It’s the punishment I receive for renting a home and wanting to visit a doctor once a year and I guess driving around a 25 year-old car. If I didn’t have such lavish tastes, maybe I wouldn’t be getting this punishment 40 hours per week.
Through a LONG series of events, seriously, this one starts pretty good and then draaags in the middle, we discover that the evil Dr. Stone, the curator, has a machine that’s turning real people into stone statues, and simultaneously turning stone statues into living people. So you could put Michaelangelo’s David in one chamber, a kid in another, boom, you’d have a statue of some bastard kid and then a living David.
There are A LOT of questions that go unanswered in this, and I would say there’s at least one for each of the Who What Where When WhyHow.
Why would someone even begin the process of pursuing a device that does this?
What utility does this have? I’m not like a “All scientists are playing god” kind of guy, I’m all for cloning organs and shit, but what purpose does bringing a gargoyle to life serve, really?
How do you build this machine? I watched Oppenheimer, and although I do not know how to build an atomic bomb, I do understand that if I had to, the way I would go about it is to find a bunch of super smart scientists, preferably with somewhat odd taste in hats, and then throw them into the project.
Who is this guy’s boss? This person must have some kind of boss, or at least similarly-placed-on-the-org-chart colleagues who would be like, “Uh, bro, are you making some kind of bring stuff to life machine? Because that’s not super really what we’re supposed to be doing here at the museum.”
When a statue is brought to life, how do they adapt to the modern world so quickly? Does this story imply the statues are always kind of alive and aware, so they have watched things happen, or is it just magic, or…?
Where do you get the parts for such a machine? Where do you build it? I barely have room to build a bookshelf in my garage, let alone a device with two chambers, one of which has a huge statue in it, the other a live child.
I do, however, sort of like that the curator is kidnapping jerkoff kids who fuck around with museum exhibits. He’s almost like a vigilante, Robinhooding life from the wicked and giving it to the statues, I guess. I mean, if they took the biggest dickheads out of my elementary school and gave their lives to statues, I would not have been super upset about that, honestly.
So the guy has a few creatures and a couple guys he’s brought to life from statues, and then our main kids are about to be turned into statues, but the curator brings Anubis to life from a statue, and Anubis turns on the curator.
Which, okay, so apparently the statues have the qualities of the people they’re modeled after, which…I guess makes as much sense as anything in the book, so it’s hard to knock it, but…whatever.
So the idiot curator brought to life an Egyptian god who is known for being super judgmental, and then he’s like, Oh, fuck, I blew it for myself, Anubis forces a greek guy statue to turn back into a statue, freeing our vandalizing friend, and the curator gets statuized, I think so Anubis can continue to walk the earth and, I don’t know, bring justice to people in highly ironic ways.
But we fail to mention that there are still a couple statues roaming around that didn’t seem to get turned back, so in theory there are still a couple kids who are statues that’ll never get turned back because only this one maniac knows how to use this machine, right? One of the statues may have been brought to life by statue-izing a cat. Which, okay, if a cat can turn into a statue and bring a human to life, I’m not the biggest human rights advocate here, but wouldn’t that be MUCH easier than kidnapping kids? It wouldn’t be terribly suspicious if a leather elbow be-patched museum curator had a bunch of cats that seemed to disappear from time-to-time. That’s both in line with what a museum nerd would do and a cat would do.
Overall, Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a show that I loved, Twilight Zone for kids. As an adult, it’s a bit of a rough watch, if I’m honest. It’s so cheap and so Canadian.
Are You Afraid of the Dark premiered about 2 months after the first Goostbumps book hit the shelves, so it seems like there was something in the air in 1992 that had everyone making horror media for kids, because it’s not like one possibly ripped off the other, being that close together, they were definitely in production at the same time.
The Sinister Statues book was actually pretty good, pretty read-able. It seemed like maybe the disbelief period was on the long side, and there was quite a bit of wheel spinning, and I think a better book would’ve just been much shorter and spent less time screwing around. But I’m sure these sorts of things had a lot to do with publishers saying something had to be X length so people felt like they were getting a good value for $3.99. Which would be $8.95 today. I can kind of see the point, if a kid read a book in 30 minutes, people might feel a little ripped off. But on the other hand, I’m the sort of person who would rather read a shorter book than a longer one that’s too long. Or, like an album: some people complain about an album being short, like 30-40 minutes, back when we bought CDs, but I’m of the opinion that I’d rather have that short album than one with four extra crap songs as filler. Or Chex Mix. The peanuts and pretzels don’t take on any flavor dust, so it’s just like bag filler. Pumpernickel chips, baby. That’s what gives us all boners.
In the show, and in the book, a bunch of kids would get together in the woods, and one of them would tell a spooky story, initiated by throwing flash powder on the campfire they all sat around. They called themselves The Midnight Society, and while this is great and a total fantasy for kids, I can’t imagine a bunch of kids getting together and actually doing this. There’s no way a kid would do this kind of homework on the regular. You can barely get a kid to do 15 minutes of math worksheets let alone come up with an entire narrative about a haunted laser tag or whatever. Hell, you can’t even get adults to come to a writing workshop with 7 pages every other week.
The Sinister Statues book starts off with these three kids, they hit the museum, and one of the kids starts drawing mustaches on a bunch of the old statues. The museum curator catches him and is pissed, and I’m very much team curator at this point. This little dickhead is using a marker to draw mustaches on ancient art, and the other kids are like, “It’s no big deal, they’ll wipe right off.” Seriously? And even if they will, what gives you the right to deface, or reface, statues?
I think one good thing about museums is that they are so fucking boring that, for the most part, influencers don’t do stupid shit in them, right? Or am I just not being exposed to the right/wrong kind of influencers? Are there people doing stupid dances in front of the prairie dioramas? Are there influencers like the ones in the hiking world that insist wandering nature with a bluetooth speaker blasting is an acceptable way to “enjoy nature?” Are there art viewers doing the same thing?
Speaking of boring museum shit, man, what becomes of diorama makers in the age of AI, eh? Before, I guess this was the best way to depict the average cave man’s life or whatever, but now it’s like 10 minutes of work for someone with rudimentary knowledge of cave men and boom, you’ve got a cg image that pretty much does the job, certainly as good as the papier mache stuff they’re always making where boulders never look right.
The curator does the thing where he’s like, “Because you defaced these statues, I’ll make you do work for me the rest of the day.” Which probably doesn’t happen too often in real life, right? If I caught someone carving swastikas in a library book, I wouldn’t be like, “Now you’ll come shelve books for the rest of the day” because am I supposed to trust this person, who has clearly demonstrated they don’t give a fuck about books, to shelve them properly? And even if they strive to do it right, it’s a ton of work on my part to monitor them. This seems really stupid on my part, I’d rather just have him pay a fine and pick up garbage on the highway, thanks. I mean, even if you fuck up picking up trash, we’re not really worse off. Maybe this is what “fostering youth” is all about, but…oh, there’s another thing I don’t like about it: Why is the punishment for defacing a statue doing MY job? That implies that I’m doing my job as a punishment. Which I sort of am. It’s the punishment I receive for renting a home and wanting to visit a doctor once a year and I guess driving around a 25 year-old car. If I didn’t have such lavish tastes, maybe I wouldn’t be getting this punishment 40 hours per week.
Through a LONG series of events, seriously, this one starts pretty good and then draaags in the middle, we discover that the evil Dr. Stone, the curator, has a machine that’s turning real people into stone statues, and simultaneously turning stone statues into living people. So you could put Michaelangelo’s David in one chamber, a kid in another, boom, you’d have a statue of some bastard kid and then a living David.
There are A LOT of questions that go unanswered in this, and I would say there’s at least one for each of the Who What Where When WhyHow.
Why would someone even begin the process of pursuing a device that does this?
What utility does this have? I’m not like a “All scientists are playing god” kind of guy, I’m all for cloning organs and shit, but what purpose does bringing a gargoyle to life serve, really?
How do you build this machine? I watched Oppenheimer, and although I do not know how to build an atomic bomb, I do understand that if I had to, the way I would go about it is to find a bunch of super smart scientists, preferably with somewhat odd taste in hats, and then throw them into the project.
Who is this guy’s boss? This person must have some kind of boss, or at least similarly-placed-on-the-org-chart colleagues who would be like, “Uh, bro, are you making some kind of bring stuff to life machine? Because that’s not super really what we’re supposed to be doing here at the museum.”
When a statue is brought to life, how do they adapt to the modern world so quickly? Does this story imply the statues are always kind of alive and aware, so they have watched things happen, or is it just magic, or…?
Where do you get the parts for such a machine? Where do you build it? I barely have room to build a bookshelf in my garage, let alone a device with two chambers, one of which has a huge statue in it, the other a live child.
I do, however, sort of like that the curator is kidnapping jerkoff kids who fuck around with museum exhibits. He’s almost like a vigilante, Robinhooding life from the wicked and giving it to the statues, I guess. I mean, if they took the biggest dickheads out of my elementary school and gave their lives to statues, I would not have been super upset about that, honestly.
So the guy has a few creatures and a couple guys he’s brought to life from statues, and then our main kids are about to be turned into statues, but the curator brings Anubis to life from a statue, and Anubis turns on the curator.
Which, okay, so apparently the statues have the qualities of the people they’re modeled after, which…I guess makes as much sense as anything in the book, so it’s hard to knock it, but…whatever.
So the idiot curator brought to life an Egyptian god who is known for being super judgmental, and then he’s like, Oh, fuck, I blew it for myself, Anubis forces a greek guy statue to turn back into a statue, freeing our vandalizing friend, and the curator gets statuized, I think so Anubis can continue to walk the earth and, I don’t know, bring justice to people in highly ironic ways.
But we fail to mention that there are still a couple statues roaming around that didn’t seem to get turned back, so in theory there are still a couple kids who are statues that’ll never get turned back because only this one maniac knows how to use this machine, right? One of the statues may have been brought to life by statue-izing a cat. Which, okay, if a cat can turn into a statue and bring a human to life, I’m not the biggest human rights advocate here, but wouldn’t that be MUCH easier than kidnapping kids? It wouldn’t be terribly suspicious if a leather elbow be-patched museum curator had a bunch of cats that seemed to disappear from time-to-time. That’s both in line with what a museum nerd would do and a cat would do.
Overall, Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a show that I loved, Twilight Zone for kids. As an adult, it’s a bit of a rough watch, if I’m honest. It’s so cheap and so Canadian.
Are You Afraid of the Dark premiered about 2 months after the first Goostbumps book hit the shelves, so it seems like there was something in the air in 1992 that had everyone making horror media for kids, because it’s not like one possibly ripped off the other, being that close together, they were definitely in production at the same time.
The Sinister Statues book was actually pretty good, pretty read-able. It seemed like maybe the disbelief period was on the long side, and there was quite a bit of wheel spinning, and I think a better book would’ve just been much shorter and spent less time screwing around. But I’m sure these sorts of things had a lot to do with publishers saying something had to be X length so people felt like they were getting a good value for $3.99. Which would be $8.95 today. I can kind of see the point, if a kid read a book in 30 minutes, people might feel a little ripped off. But on the other hand, I’m the sort of person who would rather read a shorter book than a longer one that’s too long. Or, like an album: some people complain about an album being short, like 30-40 minutes, back when we bought CDs, but I’m of the opinion that I’d rather have that short album than one with four extra crap songs as filler. Or Chex Mix. The peanuts and pretzels don’t take on any flavor dust, so it’s just like bag filler. Pumpernickel chips, baby. That’s what gives us all boners.
July 19, 2024
Plot 3/5
The first 2/3s of the book was a slog to read. Bare bones descriptions, telling the reader just enough to follow along, even though it was just hinting at things that wouldn't come to light until the final third of the book, which is without a doubt the most interesting. Once we got there, then all the pieces started coming together, we got some chase scenes, and a surprising amount of action and insight even. Suddenly the rest of the story made a lot more sense. However getting there was a struggle due to how mundane the rest of the story was. I wish we'd gotten answers sooner and the book had focused more on the supernatural aspects as opposed to the typical 'wimpy kid getting bullied by everyone' scenario. Even though it turns out that theme did have some important relevance to the story's theme as a whole, I think it could've been presented better with less build up to the spooky intrigue. As the supernatural was the far more interesting side of the tale.
Characters 4/5
The kids were likable enough and I do appreciate the growth in them. They all went through some much needed changes throughout the course of the story, not just our hero Dustin, so it's good that they got some amount of consideration as opposed to being completely overshadowed by our hero. However the 'statues' were interesting characters as well. I wished we'd gotten to see more of them. Especially Anubis. I love Anubis! And I love that they tied a little bit of mythology into the mix. Which, once again, I find the main fault of the book is just the mismatched pacing. If we'd gotten to know the statues and mythology more instead of putting so much focus on how mundane the average kids' lives are, it would've been so much more unique and likable. Also, it goes without saying, but Stone is a wonderfully mad scientist antagonist. I enjoyed him and his evil scheming as well. Dustin proved quite the worthy adversary to go against him, despite being just an ordinary 'wimpy' kid.
Setting 2/5
Aside from the pacing issue, the setting I thought was the books biggest weak point. While it was easy enough to follow and I was never confused as to where or when we were in the story, the descriptions were weak and didn't contribute much. Once again, especially in the first 2/3s of the book where it was basically the kids are in school, now they're at the museum. Now they're home. Now they're back a the museum again. It's clear enough, but just not very interesting to read.
Overall 3/5
My Mom gave me several books from my childhood phase where I was really into books like Goosebumps and Animorphs. Are You Afraid of the Dark was one of my favorite tv shows back then. Surprisingly this is the only book in the series I owned and I'm not even sure if I ever got around to reading it back in the day. Which is what provoked me to reading it now. While the beginning was a disappointment, I'm glad I stuck it out until the end. Everything from chapter 11 onward was awesome. It very much gave me the sense of nostalgia I'd been hoping for. If the rest of the book had been just as insightful, descriptive, suspenseful, and interesting, I would've given the book a 5 star instead of a more average rating of 3. In no small part perhaps, that I love Anubis. And they portrayed him exactly as I imagined him here. ♥
The first 2/3s of the book was a slog to read. Bare bones descriptions, telling the reader just enough to follow along, even though it was just hinting at things that wouldn't come to light until the final third of the book, which is without a doubt the most interesting. Once we got there, then all the pieces started coming together, we got some chase scenes, and a surprising amount of action and insight even. Suddenly the rest of the story made a lot more sense. However getting there was a struggle due to how mundane the rest of the story was. I wish we'd gotten answers sooner and the book had focused more on the supernatural aspects as opposed to the typical 'wimpy kid getting bullied by everyone' scenario. Even though it turns out that theme did have some important relevance to the story's theme as a whole, I think it could've been presented better with less build up to the spooky intrigue. As the supernatural was the far more interesting side of the tale.
Characters 4/5
The kids were likable enough and I do appreciate the growth in them. They all went through some much needed changes throughout the course of the story, not just our hero Dustin, so it's good that they got some amount of consideration as opposed to being completely overshadowed by our hero. However the 'statues' were interesting characters as well. I wished we'd gotten to see more of them. Especially Anubis. I love Anubis! And I love that they tied a little bit of mythology into the mix. Which, once again, I find the main fault of the book is just the mismatched pacing. If we'd gotten to know the statues and mythology more instead of putting so much focus on how mundane the average kids' lives are, it would've been so much more unique and likable. Also, it goes without saying, but Stone is a wonderfully mad scientist antagonist. I enjoyed him and his evil scheming as well. Dustin proved quite the worthy adversary to go against him, despite being just an ordinary 'wimpy' kid.
Setting 2/5
Aside from the pacing issue, the setting I thought was the books biggest weak point. While it was easy enough to follow and I was never confused as to where or when we were in the story, the descriptions were weak and didn't contribute much. Once again, especially in the first 2/3s of the book where it was basically the kids are in school, now they're at the museum. Now they're home. Now they're back a the museum again. It's clear enough, but just not very interesting to read.
Overall 3/5
My Mom gave me several books from my childhood phase where I was really into books like Goosebumps and Animorphs. Are You Afraid of the Dark was one of my favorite tv shows back then. Surprisingly this is the only book in the series I owned and I'm not even sure if I ever got around to reading it back in the day. Which is what provoked me to reading it now. While the beginning was a disappointment, I'm glad I stuck it out until the end. Everything from chapter 11 onward was awesome. It very much gave me the sense of nostalgia I'd been hoping for. If the rest of the book had been just as insightful, descriptive, suspenseful, and interesting, I would've given the book a 5 star instead of a more average rating of 3. In no small part perhaps, that I love Anubis. And they portrayed him exactly as I imagined him here. ♥
April 25, 2019
I absolutely LOVE Are You Afraid of the Dark? (AYAOTD) so for a couple of years I spent some time and money collecting the book series! The first books in the series are unique in that they actually glow in the dark. I didn’t even know that these books existed until I was an adult so I was stoked to get my hands on these pieces of nostalgia! It makes you sad when you see advertisements in them for a chance to win a trip to Nickelodeon Studios! I always wanted to go but it was shut down and turned into the Blue Man group when I went my senior year (05’).
I recently finished the AYAOTD? Companion book by Jose Prendes so I thought it about time to start the book series since the books have been sitting on a shelf for a while. The main setting being a museum. Siblings seem to always be involved in AYAOTD? stories. One is a wimpy geek that loves to read (Dustin) and the other an average person who is an opinionated and annoying little sister (Brianne). Dustin’s best friend, Tim, and sister, Brianne, share a common interest. They love aggravating and pranking Dustin since he always has his head in a book and isn’t aware of his surroundings. They know he won’t really fight back since he’s so passive. One day, Tim goes too far by drawing a mustache on a statue in a museum and he gets caught. He does it to freak out Dustin. He doesn’t realize it might cost him his life. Dustin and Brianne must save more than Tim. They’ll discover that the statues in the museum may be more than they seem.
The plot is definitely predictable but that never bothers me with these kind of books. I enjoy reading them because they’re fun and fast reads. I got a Frankenstein/ “House of Wax” vibe from this story. Not too bad for the first book in the series.
I recently finished the AYAOTD? Companion book by Jose Prendes so I thought it about time to start the book series since the books have been sitting on a shelf for a while. The main setting being a museum. Siblings seem to always be involved in AYAOTD? stories. One is a wimpy geek that loves to read (Dustin) and the other an average person who is an opinionated and annoying little sister (Brianne). Dustin’s best friend, Tim, and sister, Brianne, share a common interest. They love aggravating and pranking Dustin since he always has his head in a book and isn’t aware of his surroundings. They know he won’t really fight back since he’s so passive. One day, Tim goes too far by drawing a mustache on a statue in a museum and he gets caught. He does it to freak out Dustin. He doesn’t realize it might cost him his life. Dustin and Brianne must save more than Tim. They’ll discover that the statues in the museum may be more than they seem.
The plot is definitely predictable but that never bothers me with these kind of books. I enjoy reading them because they’re fun and fast reads. I got a Frankenstein/ “House of Wax” vibe from this story. Not too bad for the first book in the series.
April 23, 2024
This was a very fun and spooky book. Story takes place at a museum and it’s both creepy and funny. An evil professor is bringing statues to life by turning kids into statues, by taking their life force. Overall a very enjoyable read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 24, 2025
Exactly what I expected it to be.
June 27, 2007
Unbelievably, this was pretty decent for its genre. I'd liken it to a disappointing episode of the TV series. The writing wasn't bad, just the general plot was.
July 17, 2011
I read it 4 years ago, but I still remember everything well!!!!!!! It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews