Caution: Aliens at Work

Ghosts of Fear Street #32

by R.L. Stine

Matt finds an amazing toolbox in the Fear Street Woods. When he opens it up, the tools are like none he's ever seen.

One lets him read people's minds. Another lets him freeze people in place. A third makes him grow an extra arm!

But then the owner of the toolbox comes looking for Matt. He's a big, ugly alien -- with big, ugly plans for the toolbox. And he'll do anything to get it back!

Genres: Horror, Childrens

117 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

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

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caution Aliens At Work begins with our protagonist Matt going to get a toaster from his neighbor .You see Matt is one of those kids that loves to take things apart and fix them. His parents get on to him because he never does it right. Well while on the way he sees something in the sky flying over and looks like it crashes in the woods . He enters the Fear Street woods and discovers a tool box .Matt is also one of those kids that really wants to buy tools but can't ever seem to have the money and there is no Harber Freight in this book. He ends up taking the tool box home and opening it to see a bunch of tools that are very weird, a flashlight with a diamond lens and a three handled pair of pliers ,a disk with a rubber band around it and alot more. Matt begins pulling out tools and trying them out while simultaneously keeping his family away from them .He finds out there's a tool that can read minds ,another to see through walls and ones that makes him smarter.He decides to bring his tool box to school ,which ends up lighting his desk on fire and the toolbox going sub zero on his teacher. After this Matt decides to get rid of this box and decides to bury it. That only makes this box come back and stab Matt causing him to grow a third arm.Matt can't seem to get rid of it .It keeps popping back up and Matt keeps using the tools .This goes on until the "owner " of the tool box appears and the book gets slightly better ,but honestly not by much. This was a really middle of the road book. There are a few twists towards the end, but unfortunately that doesn't save this book. I give Caution Aliens At Work a three out of five stars.

[Austin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird but fun read.
2.5 rounded up to 3⭐

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kathryn Lance’s only other work for this series (her prior being Werecat) is one of the later entries, released in the 3-D era. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now, though I didn’t have any expectations for this one nor did I know jack about the plot. This was a bizarre and all over the place book, but one I enjoyed no less. That’s my biggest praise—this one is pretty enjoyable and entertaining all throughout, with an experimental first half and a more alien focused second half. It’s fun and I can’t walk away from this one without admitting it was very enjoyable albeit flawed, approaching a mild guilty pleasure. There’s some neat ideas thrown in here, some twists and turns I wasn’t anticipating but enjoyed, and a decent ending. It’s all-in-all an enjoyable read, but it lacked majorly in the plotting department. For about 85 pages straight, this book doesn’t have a clear angle or goal; it’s meandering and I couldn’t pin point what it was trying to do. I really liked the climax, but it was a bit jarringly thrown in her for the final chunk of the book, as there was barely any foreshadowing nor cohesion in it happening outside of “we need a fucking plot—so give it a plot!!!! And 30 more pages!!!!!!” It’s directionless and jarring when it decides it doesn’t want to be so. There’s also some questionable writing quality (mild downgrade from Kathryn’s last entry) and a pretty stretched out first half in retrospective. Overall, 7/10. I liked it. In fact, it’s pretty good… but it could’ve had more plot. Only three books left now from finishing the series… that’ll be something for 2026. Aliens were kind of at work, I guess? I dunno I just read these things.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read July 2024
3,5 stars

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never read this one as a kid.

This started off pretty decent, and the alien tools were actually pretty cool. But, the whole thing got pretty ridiculous around the middle of the book, and I was just ready for it to be over by that point.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghosts of Fear Street are really just the same thing as Goosebumps but taking place in the same town that R.L. Stine made up for his YA series. Fear Street.

[Zoe McKain · Rating 1 out of 5]

Goosebumps with a different title. Great starter books for the young horrow/thriller lovers