It contains the following stories:
- "The Chalk Closet" - Travis's summer school teacher has a most unusual method for punishing kids who don't do their work.
- "Home Sweet Home" - When Sharon accidentally breaks a bowl belonging to a neighbor woman who turns out to be a witch, she receives a most unusual punishment for it.
- "Don't Wake Mummy" - A mummy case meant for the museum is accidentally delivered to the museum curator's home instead, and his kids find the mummy inside may still be alive.
- "I'm Telling!" - Adam discovers a strange gargoyle in the forest, which leaks a substance that turns his bratty sister to stone.
- "The Haunted House Game" - A quartet of kids play a board game representing a haunted house, but the game's actions start to replicate themselves in real life.
- "Change for the Strange" - Jane and Lizzy discover a clothing store where the merchandise changes the wearers into animals.
- "The Perfect School" - Brian is sent to a reform school where he finds out the students are being replaced with robotic lookalikes that are sent home in their place.
- "For The Birds" - Kim's whole family loves birds, but Kim isn't too fond of them. Then they all go to Bird Haven Lodge, where the owners turn people into birds.
- "Aliens in the Garden" - A boy witnesses a tiny spaceship landing in his garden, and has to protect the occupants from the neighborhood bully.
- "The Thumbprint of Doom" - Three kids meet a new girl in town who's obsessed with superstitions, especially a certain thumbprint mark that will cause the victim to be inflicted with bad luck.
It was later collected in the 30 Tales to Give You Goosebumps hardcover set.
"Don't Wake Mummy" was adapted into the twenty-second episode of the second season of the 1995 TV series, while "The Haunted House Game" and "The Perfect School" were adapted into episodes of the show's third season.
The stories contain examples of:
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The Chalk Closet
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Travis has a major problem with this trope, which he casually always uses as an excuse for not doing his work.
- Bystander Syndrome: None of Travis's classmates are willing to help him when it's his turn to be sent to the titular closet as they don't want to suffer the same fate.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Mr. Grimsley sends failing/misbehaving students into a room where they'll spend the rest of eternity listening to the screech of chalk on a board, even after they've died.
- Hypocrite: This trope is shown in full effect when Travis makes it clear he doesn't care when class joker Dooley gets sent to the Chalk Closet, figuring Dooley brought it on himself. But once it's Travis's turn and his classmates are ignoring his plight, he's screaming at any of them to care.
- Nails on a Blackboard: This is what anyone banished to "The Chalk Closet" is forced to listen to for all eternity.
Home Sweet Home
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Sharon is shrunk to the size of a doll by a spell from Mrs. Forster, and she is in the peril of her spider. By the end of the story, she has to hide out in her sister's dollhouse.
Don't Wake Mummy
- Adults Are Useless: Subverted in this story, where the Jerry's mother sees the mummy and locks it in the basement. It turns out to be Kim playing a prank though.
- Big Sister Bully: Kim, who enjoys scaring her brother Jeff. Until the mummy came to life.
- Cain and Abel: The mummy in "Don't Wake Mummy" is said to have murdered his brother, the true pharaoh, for the throne.Jeff: This mummy is a killer?!
Mom: Was a killer. - Switching P.O.V.: Happens at the end of the story, between Jeff and Kim.
I'm Telling!
- Failed a Spot Check: When Missy arrives in the woods to scold Adam, she apparently fails to notice the enormous tree nearby that Adam had just turned to stone with the gargoyle's liquid. This makes her become quite off guard when Adam decides to use the gargoyle liquid on her.
- Foreshadowing: While Adam is examining the gargoyle, he notices its' huge wings which makes him surmise that if the creature flew at him, he could never outrun it. Indeed, when the gargoyle comes back to life, it flies over Adam and catches him quickly.
- Here We Go Again!: Adam has turned the gargoyle back to stone, and caused Missy to turn back to her normal state. But she is furious with her brother about this, and vows to tell their mother. To stop her from doing this, Adam sneaks behind her and sprays her again with the gargoyle liquid in his spray gun.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Adam feels terrible when he accidentally turns Missy into stone with the gargoyle liquid, and assures her that he'll bring her back into the basement to turn her back.
- Our Gargoyles Rock: This short story has a gargoyle that spits out green goo which turns people into stone.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: While bringing Missy (who has at this point been turned to stone) back to their house to turn her back, Adam's art teacher comes by and is highly impressed. She thinks that this is his project for the art contest, and is bringing it to the school. Since Adam didn't actually do his art project, he goes along with this notion and brings the Missy statue to the show. Sure enough, he wins first prize, with other people remarking that it looks so lifelike.
- Taken for Granite: Happens to anything that is touched by the gargoyle's liquid, including a tree, Missy, and the gargoyle itself when sprayed with it. However, spraying the subject matter a second time turns them into their original form.
The Haunted House Game
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Fox Kids magazine version of "The Haunted House Game" features a different ending submitted by a fan. Instead of the twist being the kids died back in the 1940s and have been reliving their game of "Haunted House" for decades, Annie and Noah get briefly trapped in the game and have to be saved by Jonathan and Nadine only for it to be implied the two were replaced by ghosts.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Jonathan notes that there are three things that he really hates, which are happening right now: thunder, lightning, and him babysitting his twin brother and sister.
- Book Ends: The story starts and ends with Johnathan getting the Haunted House boardgame out of the closet.
- Dead All Along: The story ends with the reveal that the players are four ghosts who've been stuck in the game for years.
- Dramatic Thunder: This happens as the children start "The Haunted House Game". And that's only the start of what goes on throughout the game.
- The Game Plays You: In the story, a group of children play a board game of the same name where each command they land on becomes true. It turns out that they're all ghosts who died playing the original game and are reliving the same events over and over again..
- It's Probably Nothing: While playing the titular game, the kids come across a part that involves hearing creaking footsteps on the stairs. And then exactly what the game said just happened. The twins wonder if it's the cat, to which Jonathan points out that they don't have a cat.
- Kill the Lights: This happens as part of "The Haunted House Game."
Change for the Strange
- Imagine Spot: The beginning of the story has Jane imagining herself at a massive stadium with thousands of cheering fans as she's about to start her track. But then her friend Lizzy calls her out of her daydream.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: While shrieking at her brother Ivan to get a snake (who was actually Jane transformed by enchanted clothing that she bought), Lizzy screams, "Get... it... out... of... here. NOW!"
The Perfect School
- Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Brian is desperate to get out of his room and escape before he's replaced by a robot. So he knocks on the door and tells a Guardian that he needs to go to the bathroom. This is what he needs to get a folded paper into the lock behind the closing door so the door wouldn't lock afterwards.
- Foreshadowing: When Brian is looking at the recent graduates from the Perfect School in astonishment, he thinks to himself that they seem like robots. It turns out that they are robots, to replace their counterparts in the real world.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: The scam run by the school to "fix" problem children — they lock up the originals and send back identical robotic duplicates in their place.
- You Are Number 6: Upon becoming students at the Perfect School, they are given numbers to be addressed as.
For the Birds
- Creepy Crows: Kim is trying to get to sleep, but she hears cawwing outside her window, so she looks out to see a shocking amount of birds circling overhead. One of them, an enormous crow, landed on the window ledge, and started staring at Kim and pecking at the glass. Kim is left wondering what it could be trying to tell her. It was probably warning her about the revenge plan that Mr. Dove had in store for her family.
- Eyes Out of Sight: One of Kim's brothers, Andy, has his hair hanging down over his eyes. This makes Kim unsure if he's ever looking at her or not.
- Hedge Maze: The main attraction at Bird Haven Lodge is a large hedge maze, which Kim and her family go through, and quickly come across a giant cage, where Mr. Dove traps them in for their transformations.
- Karmic Transformation: As part of the revenge that Mr. Dove has planned for Kim's family, he transforms all of the Peterson's into animals. He turns her parents into lovebirds, because of them constantly being romantic to each other throughout the vacation. He then turns her older brothers into mockingbirds, because they constantly tease Kim. As for her, Mr. Dove turns her into a cat, presumably so she can attack her family for making her stay at this place.
Aliens in the Garden
- Batter Up!: When a defeated Flip comes back to attack in retaliation, he brings his cousin Drake along, who is wielding a bat. He used it to try whacking two of the aliens on the ground.
- Dramatic Irony: Kurt and Jenna find part of the alien's spacesuit ripped off after it left, and they examine it through a magnifing glass. They see that the scrap of clothing contains a rectangle. With red and stripes going across it. And the upper left-hand corner is blue. And it has fifty white stars on it. The two wonder what it means, correctly believing that it is a symbol flag from the alien's planet, but they guess they'll never know.
- Headlock of Dominance: Duke does this to Kurt, which hurts. Luckily for him, the aliens fire their ray guns at Duke, saving Kurt.
- Human Aliens: Used as the Twist Ending. The titular aliens are human astronauts.
- Jaw Drop: Flip and Drake do this while staring at the aliens' spaceship as it blasts off back into space. And according to Kurt, they're still doing it as he and Jenna are leaving the park.
- Shout-Out: The plot of Aliens in the Garden is likely inspired by the Twilight Zone Episode The Invaders. Both involve someone dealing with tiny aliens that turn out to be humans.
- Teens Are Monsters: Flip, who is fourteen and loves picking on Kurt. And when he catches Kurt with the little aliens, he decides to kill them and almost succeeds in doing so.
- Tomato Surprise: The short story ends with the reveal that the story is actually set on another planet and the titular aliens were actually humans.
The Thumbprint of Doom
- 13 Is Unlucky: Among the superstitions that Carla annoys Trisha with, the one that she finds the most infuriating is when Carla runs onto the field while Trisha is playing baseball and is about to swing. According to her, it's thirteen minutes after one o'clock on Friday the 13th, which means that she can't hit a ball right then and there, as it would be a disaster.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Unlike the other short stories in this book (and the series altogether), this one ends up lacking supernatural elements.
- Rage Breaking Point: Trisha is annoyed with Carla's superstitious ramblings, but she tries to ignore them at first. But when Carla comes running up to her during a baseball game of hers whilst screaming one, causing her to lose an inning and be out, Trisha is livid and gathers her friends to plan a scheme against her.
