Children are happily reading in Stine’s time

Kirk Baird

Friday, Sept. 16, 2005 | 8:29 a.m.

With all the electronic distractions at their disposal, it's easy to assume kids today aren't reading.

Robert Stine, however, says that's not true.

"They find the time to read. Children's publishing would not be such a big business if they didn't," the popular children's author said in a recent phone interview from his New York apartment.

"Look at Harry Potter and the thousands and thousands who are rushing to the bookstores and all the books they are selling. It used to be they didn't have kids stampeding stores."

Getting children to read is something Stine knows a little about.

His highly successful "Goosebumps" series of fright books for kids, written under the pen name R.L. Stine, has sold 250 millions copies alone.

The author will be in Las Vegas for appearances over two days to promote children's literacy.

Today Stine is scheduled to speak to fourth-grade students from Cunningham, Harmon, Hinman, McCaw, Robert Taylor, Sewell and Whitney elementary schools, and to have a brown bag lunch with Basic High School journalism students.

At 1 p.m. Saturday Stine is scheduled to speak at the Henderson Pavilion at Liberty Pointe as part of All People Promoting Literacy Efforts (APPLE) Partnership's "Celebration of Reading." The Henderson Pavilion event is open to the public.

While experts and parents debate methods of encouraging children to read, Stine, who has spent three decades in children's publishing, has a rather simple solution.

"My answer is you show them they don't have to run to reading just to learn something ... or to learn a moral. They can turn to reading just for entertainment," he said. "That's what my books are about."

He also subscribes to the notion that children's books should be short in length.

A typical children's book for Stine runs anywhere between 100-150 pages, which is considerably less than the most of the Harry Potter books, the most recent of which, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," was 652 pages.

"I'm a little confused by kids wanting these big, fat books," he said. "Here's a book that you actually read and you can finish because it's really short. I like that much better. It gives (children) a real sense of accomplishment. They tell me, 'I read your book in two days,' or 'I read your book in six hours.' That makes me feel good."

Born in Columbus, Ohio, the 61-year-old Stine was an avid reader growing up and credits Ray Bradbury for getting him started.

A few years ago Stine had the opportunity to thank the noted sci-fi author in person.

"The L.A. Times was having a book festival on the campus of UCLA and there was Ray Bradbury sitting in a booth eating a hot dog. I had to meet him," Stine recalled. "I was shaking, I was so nervous. I reached my hand out (and) said, 'Mr. Bradbury, you're my hero,' like I was a kid. He was nice to me and he said, 'Well, you're a hero to a lot of people.'

"It was a very moving moment and I was very broken up."

A prolific writer, cranking out roughly a book a month, Stine has also dabbled in writing for adults as well. He's written two thrillers for Ballantine Books: "Eye Candy," ($6.99) about a beautiful New York woman with four suitors -- one of whom is trying to kill her; and "The Sitter," ($6.99) the story of a New York woman who takes a job as a nanny and has to unravel the mystery of a boy who won't speak and the ghostly visions of a boy from the past.

"When I write for kids, I want them to know nothing in the book is real," he said. "When I write for adults, everything has to be real. And that's the big difference."

Stine has since returned to writing children's books, only instead of eliciting scares from kids, he's trying to make them laugh with a new series, "Rotten School."

Featuring "very gross and very funny 10-year-old humor," the books are set at Rotten School, founded by I.B. Rotten a century ago, and feature the same characters in each: troublemaking Bernie Bridges, stuck-up April-May June, greedy Sherman Oaks and "nightmare girl" Jennifer Ecch.

"I wrote about 100 joke books for kids and did a humorous magazine for kids for 10 years (Bananas)," Stine said. "I never really thought about being scary, it just sort of happened. I still like scaring kids and that's not going to stop. I just thought it might be a nice break to do something different."

And what scares Stine?

How 'bout talk of writer's burnout?

"Don't say 'burnout,' " he half-jokes. "If you keep finding new things, like going from being funny to serious and now funny, it keeps things very invigorating. It keeps you going."