RL Stine responds to GOOSEBUMPS revision reports by saying that’s not true; But Scholastic made them years ago

It was recently reported that the children’s horror writer RL Stine he was going through many of his old books, editing any negative references to race, weight, and mental health. A lot has been happening recently with Penguin editing Roald Dal’s Books and Ian Fleming Publications Ltd by changing the James Bond novels.

It was reported that Stine was doing all the changes himself and over 100 changes have been made so far. An example of a revision that was done was in a book where aliens abducted large people where in the original book they were described as having “at least six minds”, the revised version now says people are “at least six feet and six”.

Well, it turns out that none of this is true. Stine himself dismissed the rumors by responding to fans on Twitter, saying, “This story is false. I’ve never changed a word in a Goosebumps book.” In another tweet, Stine said, “The stories are not true. I’ve never changed a word in Goosebumps. Any changes have never been shown to me.”

But then, Scholastic shared a statement regarding changes to the book series saying changes were made, but they were made years ago: That statement reads, “For more than 30 years, the Goose bumps the series has made millions of children read through humor with just the right amount of fear. Scholastic takes its responsibility seriously to continue to bring this classic teenage brand to each new generation. When reprinting the titles several years ago, Scholastic revised the text to maintain current language and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a focus on mental health.

With the way Stein is responding to these reports, it seems to me that he’s never been shown or told about any of these changes that have been made, so that’s interesting.

One of the other changes reported was in the reprint of the book Do not go to sleep!which has been updated so that the book Anna Karenina it is no longer referred to as “girl stuff” and is now referred to as “uninteresting” instead.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read the Goosebumps books and if I were reading them now, I wouldn’t even remember how they were written before. I just think it’s interesting that while Stine denies it and it’s never been shown to him, Scholastic says, yeah, we already have.