What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

SO I'm fairly certain this book series was around in the 90s. For some reason, I'm convinced it had something to do with the phrase, "bump in the night" and it was set in a town called bump, though that could be completely made up in my head. lol. I remember one of the main characters had a name like Muffy or something similar. One of them centered on witches who had apple trees and made cider or something. One I recall something like a "proboscis tree" that everyone stayed away from and a worm emerged from it and controlled people. I also remember one of them having a large older woman who would break wind as she walked and she called them "barking spiders"

I don't know why this popped into my head the other day, but I thought I'd foray into a bit of nostalgia and order them. Only I had absolutely no luck finding anything about it...so any help is greatly appreciated!!!!!!

Maybe the Deadtime Stories series
https://www.goodreads.com/series/6082...

One of the stories is Invasion of the Appleheads
Description:Robin and Andy must find a way to lift a witch's curse on Appleton after their parents drink poisoned cider and turn into shrunken applehead dolls.

If not, do you remember anything about the cover(s)?

No, that's not it, though thank you for your valiant effort! Sadly, I don't remember anything about the covers. I really wish I could remember more about the books.

Any more info about the main character you described? Things like age etc. Also, how did each story start? Did the characters go to school together?

They were juvenile fiction type books. They all centered around this town. I want to say it was called Bump, but I could be wrong. There were adults but the books all centered around kids, probably tweens. Each book was a different main character, a kid, who lived in the town. The only storylines I vaguely remember are an earwig or worm coming from a tree and controlling people like the fat lady with "barking spiders" and another book centered on an apple orchard in town that was ran by a family of witches, who made cider around halloween.

They sold these books at WalMart, because at the time, that was the only place to buy books in my small town. lol. I wish I could remember more details, because I have scoured young adult and juvenile fiction books for days now.

Was the Town they lived in Bixby, Oklahoma? If so, was it The Midnighters?

Should have added the author's name Scott .Westerfeld

Try going through lists like this https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...

Maybe part of the Bone Chillers series? https://www.goodreads.com/series/8123...
Very similar to Goosebumps but these all take place at a haunted high school.

I'll throw this series out there also: Shivers
https://www.goodreads.com/series/4162...

Here is a wiki synopsis of the books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivers_...

There's an apple orchard story, but with ghosts.

Was the series by one author, or did multiple authors contribute?

I wanna say one author. I do remember they were set in the same town and the books made them out to be like a real town with the characters emails attached. I remember that cuz little me emailed a girl character from the story. Lol. I wish I still had the email.

Matthew, are you still looking for this series or did you find it?

I still have yet to find it. And boy, have I looked.

While looking at Stephen Cosgrove's list of books, I came across some which could be your series: Brain Worms, Pinch of Salt.
Series page: https://www.goodreads.com/series/2364...

The strange thing is copyright (inside the kindle preview) is 2010, there's site (not active) listed: http://www.bumpcitychamber.org/ Some of it was archived: http://web.archive.org/web/2001101204... and captures are from 2001, so I'm guessing there's a chance the books were published earlier than 2010?

Aah, I just searched with the name of the first book, and it seems they were published under: Thadd L. Wolfe

Edit: I can't find if the new books published under "Stephen Cosgrove" are the same as the the previous ones, so I created new series for the older ones: https://www.goodreads.com/series/2364...
, , ,

Here’s a link to a sample from one of the books: the preface makes it pretty clear that Thadd L. Wolfe was the character Stephen Cosgrove invented as a narrator for this series, and listing him as author was just a way of committing further to the fiction.
https://www.proedinc.com/Downloads/20...

(Note that even though Wolfe is listed as author, the copyright is under Cosgrove’s name.)

Emlen wrote: "Here’s a link to a sample from one of the books: the preface makes it pretty clear that Thadd L. Wolfe was the character Stephen Cosgrove invented as a narrator for this series, and listing him as ..."

Yeah, I figured Wolfe would not be real person. What I found strange (initially) was that kindle editions have copyright of 2010, searching for "Bump in the Night" and "Cosgrove" wouldn't show earlier publications and there was the 2001 archive of the website. Once I googled "BIT'N Files" I found the Wolfe name as author and the earlier books and it became clearer.

Still looking, Matthew?

OMG That is it! You are a treasure. I can't believe you found it. I was starting to think I'd imagined them all, but at least I can take a bit of relief that it was difficult for you as well. lol. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Glad you found your book series, Matthew. Just to confirm, is it the BIT'N Files Series - the first book is Die Laughing by Thadd L. Wolfe?

Matthew ~~
Was Die Laughing or one of the other books in the series your book?
Please let us know yea or nay. Yea = we mark the book as "solved" and shelve it. Nay = we keep looking.
We crave closure!

Yes yes!