Trick or Read! Scholastic Celebrates Twenty Terrifically Terrifying Years of Goosebumps™ & The 'Safe' Scare

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Scholastic Media, a division of Scholastic Inc. (NASDAQ: SCHL) and licensor for Goosebumps™, the global mega-brand with over 300 million books sold worldwide in 32 languages, today announced its 20^th anniversary 'Get Goosebumps' marketing and media celebration in support of the brand this Halloween season. The initiative will feature new publishing by R.L. Stine from Scholastic, a marathon of the original TV series on The Hub TV network, a destination for kids and their families, new DVDs from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, and a 'Trick or Read' event in New York City.

"Goosebumps serves up an irresistible recipe of fun - combining humor with safe scares that delights millions of children around the world," said Deborah Forte, President of Scholastic Media and Executive Vice President of Scholastic Inc. "Scholastic is proud to celebrate the brand's universal and timeless appeal with this significant milestone."

In 1992, Scholastic introduced a monthly book series by R.L. Stine called Goosebumps® with Goosebumps: Welcome to the Dead House. Twenty years later, Goosebumps is now one of the bestselling children's series of all-time—with more than 300 million books sold in 32 languages, selling at the phenomenal rate of four million books per month in the mid-1990s. The Goosebumps series made R.L. Stine a worldwide publishing celebrity (and Jeopardy answer), and Goosebumps was named the world's bestselling book series of all time in the 2003 Guinness Book of World Records.  The 20^th anniversary celebration will include visibility through the following initiatives:

Get Goosebumps with books by R.L. Stine
This month marks the launch of an all new series, Goosebumps: Most Wanted, a five book arc following the most wanted Goosebumps villains of all time. The series kicks off October 1^st with Goosebumps Most Wanted #1: Planet of the Lawn Gnomes in both paperback and e-book formats. Earlier this year, the first ever Goosebumps hardcover (and simultaneous e-book version), Goosebumps Wanted: The Haunted Mask was published. In addition to the more than 300 Goosebumps books in print, Storia™, Scholastic's teacher recommended eReading app for kids, will debut more than 50 Goosebumps e-books this year.

Get Goosebumps on The Hub TV Network
The Hub TV Network will once again celebrate Halloween by getting Goosebumps! All this month, the series will air weekly on Saturdays at 5 p.m. ET and for the first time ever, the Hub's online destination, hubworld.com, will host full-length episodes of "Goosebumps" throughout the month of October.  As a special 20^th anniversary tribute, The Hub will telecast a special four-hour marathon of "Goosebumps" episodes on Monday, October 22 from 4-8 p.m. ET. All 74 episodes of "Goosebumps," the live-action, half-hour anthology series produced by Scholastic Media, take place in a strange reality where nothing is ever as it seems.

Get Goosebumps on DVD
Newly released this Fall for the anniversary from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment are three Goosebumps singles and three Goosebumps 'Two DVD Spook Packs'. The singles include 'It Came From Beneath The Sink', 'The Night of the Living Dummy' and 'Say Cheese and Die'.  The 'Two DVD Spook Packs' include ' One Day at HororLand' & 'Go Eat Worms', 'The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight' & 'A Night in Terror Tower', and 'The Headless Ghost' & 'Ghost Beach'.

Get Goosebumps in New York City!
To mark the anniversary, Scholastic will host a 3^rd grade classroom on Thursday, October 25^th to participate in a 20^th anniversary 'Trick or Read' event. The children will journey through a larger than life Goosebumps themed corn maize to finish an original 'Goosebumps' story read by R.L.Stine himself – where they will participate in 20 spooky challenges before exiting the maze to a pumpkin patch of surprises.

Get Goosebumps on Twitter & Facebook!
On Halloween Day at 1 p.m., R.L. Stine will once again take over Scholastic's Facebook and Twitter accounts, posting spine-tingling stories, photos, trivia, and jokes, and answering readers' questions. Fans can follow the ghoulish action at facebook.com/scholastic and twitter.com/scholastic, as well as on R.L. Stine's own Twitter account, twitter.com/rl_stine – which just last year was named by Time.com as one of the '140 Best Twitter Feeds'.

Get Goosebumps on iTunes
Seasons 1 through 4 of the Goosebumps television series are available on the iTunes Store for owners of iPad and iPod Touch. Also available for purchase on the iTunes Store is "Goosebumps PhotoShock," a game app for the iPhone ™ and iPod touch ®, as well as Goosebumps HorrorLand Audiobooks #1-12. Players can customize photos into ever-so-ghastly Goosebumps frights and give their friends a real scare!

Get Goosebumps Online
Fans can log onto the official website at www.scholastic.com/goosebumps for games, activities, videos and book information all month long – including two newly launched games 'Gauntlet of Ghouls' and 'Ghost Hotel'.

Get Goosebumps Games!
The "Goosebumps HorrorLand™" video game is available on Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. Players follow a group of friends trapped in an evil theme park who must make their way through several challenging levels to escape.

Get Goosebumps at The Scholastic Store
Fans can celebrate Halloween at The Scholastic Store in New York City on October 27 at 3:00p.m..  Fans can join the annual Scholastic Halloween parade and participate in the 'Goosebumps Wheel of Misfortune' raffle and demo the Goosebumps Wii game.

For more information on Goosebumps, visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/Goosebumps, http://www.scholastic.com/goosebumps/ and www.facebook.com/officialgoosebumps

SOURCE Scholastic Inc.