Teacher Creature

Bone Chillers #6

by Betsy Haynes

Feeling uneasy about their bulging-eyed, slimy-tongued new teacher, Joey and Nate soon realize the truth about the mean and creepy Mr. Batrachian--that he likes to eat sixth-graders for snacks. Original.

Genres: Horror

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

ABOUT ME

Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?

My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade

I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/​junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.

Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.

I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teacher Creature From the Bone Chillers series is one of the few books I remember seeing at my media center as a kid.I never read it back then,because as I've explained before,I felt like I was betraying Goosebumps at the time.I finally finished it and I have to say this one was pretty wild.I do remember seeing the episode of this one and thinking it was nuts,but somehow I think the book is way more crazy.Atleast more unpredictable, towards the end especially.The book begins with two friends Nate and Joey.Joey is our main protagonist.Both of the kids love daring eachother to do things,seeing who is braver then the other.They dare eachother to sneak into this guy's yard that has a big dog and some other stuff I don't remember.We learn that there is a hurricane  coming and one of the boys dare the other to ride it out in the storm.There is also this girl named Molly,that is a know it all and very preppy.While the storm is approaching,the kids sneak out and head toward the school.They run into Molly and she tries convincing them not to stay in the school,but they do anyway and somehow Molly gets tied up in this.They are at the school and it's during the hurricane and the atmosphere and writing is really fun.They end up seeing something outside.It looks like a man in a brown suit and when it turns around it has blood around its mouth.The kids are freaked out and want to leave,especially when the windows bust from the wind and they think this crature is inside the school with them.The kids end up making it back to Joey's house where they ride out the remainder of the storm.I felt like this book is split into two parts and the hurricane stuff was part one.They go to school the next day and there is a new teacher sitting at the desk.He introduces himself as Mr batrachian,a overweight man with bug eyes and is always wearing a brown suit.He does weird things with his tounge and has a bad smell to him.he also does the whole snake talk thing with the letter "s".Mr.Barachain says the kids are going on a trip to the everglades and each kid gets a sheet of paper with something they must find.Joey thinks he sees out of the corner of his eye that Mr.batrachian flicks his tongue at a fly.Things get even weirder when they arrive at the everglades and Mr.batrachian is seen by Joey eating a raccoon.He tries to tell Molly and Nate,but they don't belive him.Joey also runs into a alligator and Mr.Batrichian presumably eats it too.Joey thinks this guy brought the kids here for a reason but don't know what,that is until Joey finds a book on Mr.Batrichian's desk all about how to eat kids.This book was really good.I loved the first half and the ending was absolutely crazy.I didn't expect what happend at all.I did get slightly bored in the later half but it definitely ended on a high note.I also have to point out the teacher jumping like a frog and whipping his tongue like a whip was awesome.I also really enjoyed that we get an origin where he came from.I give Teacher Creature a four out of five stars.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bone Chillers had quite a few good books, but also some duds, and Teacher Creature belongs to the second category. Skinny sixth-grader Joey Powers and his plump pal Nate Dolinsky like to test each other's bravery in subversive ways, but they aren't bad kids even if Molly Murphy, the class brain, resents them. Their courage gets a major test when a hurricane hits their hometown of Ochopee, Florida. Joey and Nate sneak away from their families and hunker down inside the school to ride out the storm by themselves, but Molly catches them and ends up having to weather the hurricane alongside the boys. What happens next is beyond their craziest expectations.

What was that slimy monster Joey, Nate, and Molly saw during the hurricane? Its mouth smeared with blood, the creature was terrifying, but no one believes them. When school reconvenes, the old teacher is gone, replaced by a Mr. Batrachian, a strange-looking man who reminds Joey of the monster. Nate and Molly dismiss Joey's concern, chalking up the original monster sighting to panic caused by the storm, but Joey believes Mr. Batrachian is a mutant created by the hurricane. Can Joey convince his two friends to help defeat Mr. Batrachian before he consumes the students?

Most of my way through Teacher Creature I expected to rate it at least two stars. The hurricane is more intense than usual for a juvenile horror series, and the monster is grotesque in the best way, but by the end all plausibility had been squandered. It's not believable that the swamp mutant could convincingly masquerade as a human with only a few days' practice, or that he could get a job teaching in school. This book could be excellent had the author shown care in setting up the scenario. I rate Teacher Creature one and a half stars, and can't recommend it.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

And now I've finally read another book from each of the ripoff series I looked at during my theme month. I will be getting to more as these tend to be fun.

This one is interesting as it is part of what I call the Creature Teacher trilogy. See, before Goosebumps did Creature Teacher in Series 2000, 3 of the ripoff/similar series beat Stine to the punch. Besides this, there was Graveyard School;s Creature Teacher, Spooksville's Creature in the Teacher, and then there was this. I know it's a common turn of phrase for horror stories but it's just funny so many did it before Goosebumps did.

Can't compare it to the Goosebumps one yet, although I have read The Final Exam. Still, I'll judge it on its own here and I ended up liking it. It did throw me off in a few ways though. It starts with protagonist Joey Powers and his friend Nate being goof off jerks towards their teacher which wasn't a good start for them.

Then when a literally hurricane is coming, Joey gets the idea to get back to the school and wait out the storm to prove to Nate he's brave or whatever. Yeah I was ready to hate this one but then around here it gets better. It actually takes a while for the Teacher Creature to appear, as the first half is them, along with the "Class brain" Molly Murphy, get trapped in school during the storm, with a monster emerging from a nearby swamp.

Once the storm clears and things get better, a new teacher comes in that turns out to be a mutation born from that storm. This happens like 60 pages into a 128 page book, so while they do spend a decent chunk of time exploring this, it being later in means we quickly get into Joey finding him weird while no one believes him.

One frustrating thing was that Molly and Nate are quck to shut Joey him down even though they straight up saw a monster during the storm. I know Molly's shtick is being the scientific type but it just felt forced, and what's Nate's excuse?

That aside, still some fun stuff here, like the nature of how they reveal Mr. Batrachian is a kid eater, and some solid descriptions here and there. Honestly the hurricane section was the best part, the stakes were high and this could have just been a sort of Sy-Fy Channel style natural disaster mutation story. The teacher stuff is more standard in comparison.

I ended up enjoying the dynamic with the characters, as joey tries to put on a brave face, Nate is kinda the same but more a jerk about it, and Molly is again, the brain that Joey initially doesn't like but of course they eventually get stuck together and team up. It's kinda sitcom-y but actually in the good fun charming way, for the most part.

There's some wonky logic things, which is to be expected although some kinda stretch it lol. Ending was pretty abrupt although the solution was something else. Much like Pet Shop of Horrors, this had dark parts, there's a running thing where the monster teacher is seen with blood in his mouth, at one point he full on eats a racoon carcass, and it is stated that he ate the previous teacher, again using that blood in mouth as a tell. Damn.

Overall, clunky in places but has some solid highs that it make it fun. It's about as good as Pet Shop, has a few more clunky bits but less threats of animal abuse at least. (As far as the Creature Teacher trilogy goes, a tad lesser than the Spooksville one but arguably a bit more creative since that one reuses elements from previous books in that series, making it a lesser one for that series imo but still good and that series stronger elements make it a bit better than this one in general)

One last thing, this had an episode in the TV show and it's a perfect example of how In Name Only. There, Batrachian is already an established teacher (and he's stern, while in the book he at least pretends to be nice), and becomes a creature after eating some gunk put in his sandwich that came from a swamp. So it's the total opposite, and ontop of that, while he is stern, he does rightfully punish the main boy kids for being disruptive and his monster antics are the fault of his mutation, not his true nature pr say so it's kind of harsh when he is thrown back in the swamp with no explanation as to if he's alive or not.

Yeah, I surprisingly like the book more. Okay, now I'm done.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Defied all my expectations when it comes to tropes. Being one of those “the teacher is a monster” kids horror stories that seem to show up once or twice in every series, I had certain expectations for what was to happen—and this book did deliver on that whilst adding its own stuff. So how is the book? Twas meh. It’s got an okay villain that had some exceptional reveals and well-executed moments, as well as a solid protagonist. The ending is bizarre (yet fits in a way) and plays off the first nearly half of the book, of which I thought was gonna be useless exposition, but turned out to kind of not be. Both the first half and end of the book aren’t what I was expecting at freaking all for this book, and I really dug them. The first half is during a hurricane of all things and the kids are trapped in the school (semi-spoiler, suck mah dick). It’s a great portion of the book when it comes to intrigue and enjoyability, even with its issues—now getting to those. So… writing. It’s very iffy and some paragraphs don’t need to be paragraphs, descriptions are lacking at times, and generally it feels kinda meh (like the book!). A decent bit of the first half kind of serves no purpose to the story. It turns from a hurricane story to a more predictable yet still decent story, and it’s kind of a blue ball moment; they had little to do with each other aside from the ending, characters, and making the characters more willing to believe a certain teacher is a creature. It’s good stuff but it truly didn’t need to be here, which bothers me. In other words, the book could’ve lost, say, 25 pages and it would’ve been more concise. Either way: there’s also the plot. Been there, done that tropes that don’t reinvent the wheel. Sad yawn. Some characters lacked, peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches are brought up at least seven times, and yeah. Overall, 6.5/10. It’s fine. Mrs. Maaaargh, I found yo man!

[Isabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Loved it. The only thing that got me mad was that the last pages were ripped out by god-knows-who. I swear that made me so mad. I recommend it for kids that are at least nine years old. I read the book in grade four. It was amazing. Honestly the details in the book makes you think you are IN the book. Really good. I am still looking for this book. I still haven’t read the end. Thanks to BOME CHILLERS my friends and I finally have something to talk about. ❤️❤️❤️

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a storm and flooding where I am right now, and I suddenly remembered this book existed. The storm scene was iconic, that's all I really remember. Like, I read that scene over and over and it clearly wedged itself somewhere deep in my head.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written for kids without a doubt. It was still an amusing hour or so read though.

[Christopher Byram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this when I was a child, interesting book.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute.

[Ciera Legue · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is bone chilling but amazing

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je sais pas si c'est parce que je les connais trop par coeur mais j'ai trouvé ça beaucoup mieux rythmé et détaillé que beaucoup de Chair de Poule. 🐸

[Joshua Hair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this one as a kid. Thanks to my baby sister, I got a chance to read and review it once more. I was always a big fan of Betsy Haynes and her Bone Chillers books, even if they didn't always stack up in popularity to the Goosebumps monopoly.

Teacher Creature in particular stuck with me through the years as one of my favorite Bone Chillers. For one, it takes place in Florida, where I spent a decent portion of my childhood, so I could always imagine the thing from the Everglades crawling its way out the swamp and banging down my front door in search of a meal. It's cheesy, it's fun, and it's a quick and easy read for most grade levels. Grab yourself a copy and share with the kids.