The Monster's Ring

By Bruce Coville

Russell wanted to be a monster for Halloween—but this wasn’t what he had in mind! “[A] lively tale.” —The New York Times

Twist it once, you're horned and haired;

Twist it twice and fangs are bared;

Twist it thrice? No one has dared!

After running away from the school bully, Russell finds himself on a street he’s never seen before—and inside an amazing magic shop. But when he leaves, he’s sure that the ring he bought from the ancient-looking Mr. Elives is just a silly trick, as useless as those X-Ray Specs he ordered from the back of a comic book. Then, without reading the instructions carefully, he twists the ring—and actually starts turning into a monster . . .

Praise for the Magic Shop series

“A funny, enjoyable, imaginative story [with] unexpected depth.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 

“Fast-moving with slapstick humor . . . . Recommended.” —Horn Book

Winner of the South Carolina Children’s Book and IRA Children’s Choice Awards

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9780544635425

Bruce Coville

BRUCE COVILLE is the author of over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher is an Alien, the Unicorn Chronicles series, and the much-beloved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. His work has appeared in a dozen languages and won children's choice awards in a dozen states. Before becoming a full time writer Bruce was a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. He is also the creator of Full Cast Audio, an audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening and has produced over a hundred audiobooks, directing and/or acting in most of them. Bruce lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, illustrator and author Katherine Coville.

Book preview

Copyright © 2002, 1982 by Bruce Coville

Illustrations copyright © 1982 by Katherine Coville

All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in United States by Random House Children’s Books, 1982.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

clarionbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Coville, Bruce.

The monster’s ring/by Bruce Coville.

p. cm.

A Magic Shop Book.

Summary: A timid boy, eager to frighten the school bully on Halloween night, acquires a magic ring and the power to change himself into a hideous monster.

[1. Monsters—Fiction. 2. Bullies—Fiction. 3. Halloween—Fiction. 4. Schools— Fiction. 5. Magic—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C8344Mo 2002

[Fic]—dc21 2002003537

ISBN 978-0-15-204618-7 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-15-206442-6 paperback

eISBN 978-0-544-63542-5

v2.0721

This is still for Orion

ONE

The Magic Shop

Russell Crannaker glanced up and down the alley.

He was alone.

Perfect. He could practice in peace.

Putting up his arms, Russell staggered forward. He rolled back his eyes so only the whites were showing. Then he began to moan.

Fantastic! He was going to be great as Frankenstein’s monster—the best ever.

Russell relaxed and grinned. Halloween should be all right this year after all.

He moaned and lurched forward again.

Frankenstein. Boy, would he love to actually be Frankenstein’s monster for a while. Then he’d show that Eddie a thing or two. He could see it now: Eddie kneeling in front of him, whining, begging, pleading for mercy.

He could even hear Eddie’s voice: "Please, Russell. Please don’t hurt me. Please. Please!"

Russell smiled. It was a pleasant daydream. But his smile quickly turned to a frown.

Something was wrong.

Eddie was still talking!

Oh, no! Save me, save me! It’s the horrible Crankenstein! Hey, Crannaker, what’s up? You lose your marbles?

Russell opened his eyes and turned pale. Eddie, six inches taller than Russell and made mostly of mouth and muscle, was standing at the end of the alley. Come here, twink, he sneered. "I’ll make you really look like Frankenstein."

Russell started to shake. So far that day, Eddie had poked him, punched him, called him names, and smashed him in the face with a cream-filled cupcake. Under the circumstances, only one thing made sense.

Russell did it.

He ran.

Hey, Crannaker! bellowed Eddie. Whassa matter? You afraid?

Afraid? Of course he was afraid! These days he lived in fear of what Eddie might do next.

He rounded the back corner of the alley and tripped over a row of garbage cans. One fell, spreading trash from wall to wall. Eddie, racing around the corner after him, struck something slimy and slid to his seat. I’ll get you for this, Crannaker! he roared.

I’ve got to get out of here, Russell thought desperately. Got to get away. . . now!

He was off like a shot, barreling down some back street. Without thinking, without looking, he turned another corner, and then another.

Suddenly everything was quiet.

Russell stopped. Where was Eddie?

He looked around.

To his surprise, he was alone. Not only that, he was on a street that was completely new to him. That bothered him a little, but it was no real problem. He knew Kennituck Falls fairly well. He couldn’t be far from a main street.

He walked to the next corner, figuring that would take him back to where he had started.

It didn’t.

He turned right again—and then again. He was confused now. And scared. Not scared the way he had been when Eddie was after him. He was scared because Kennituck Falls was too small to get lost in. . . .

It was starting to get dark. A fog began to rise, the mist curling around his feet like snakes made out of smoke.

Russell stopped again. He had reached a dead end street. It was lined with shops he had never seen before. They were closed—all except one. Directly ahead of him, a light burning in its window, crouched a store that took his breath away. The sign in the curved window, written in old-fashioned letters, read:

ELIVES’ MAGIC SUPPLIES

S. H. ELIVES, PROP.

Russell felt a surge of delight. He was crazy about magic anyhow. But in October, when it seemed as if anything could happen, he was consumed with a desire to experience it. His worries about being lost disappeared. He had to see what was in that shop!

He hurried forward. Through a window dark with the grime of years, he could see a crammed display of typical magician’s stock: big decks of cards, top hats, Chinese rings, silk scarves. But there was more here—dark boxes with mysterious designs, capes with dragons on them, a skull with a candle on its top. . . .

He loved it.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure his enemy was nowhere in sight, he opened the door.

A small bell tinkled overhead as Russell stepped in. He looked around uncertainly. A sweet, mysterious aroma filled the air, but the shop was empty. Not only were there no other customers, there was not even a clerk in sight.

He didn’t care; he was too thrilled by the contents of the place, which was jam-packed from top to bottom with magic equipment. The wall to his right held a section of live animals—doves and rabbits, mostly, for pulling out of hats, but also lizards, toads, and snakes.

I wonder what they’re for, thought Russell.

Then his attention was attracted by a stack of books—old, leather-bound volumes with thick ridges on their spines. The top book on the pile was tided Mystery and Illusion. Beneath it was A Traveler’s Guide to Other Worlds.

Just past the books, resting on a pair of dark red sawhorses, was a large box for the old trick of sawing

Reviews for The Monster's Ring

[mutantpudding · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love this series and found it interesting how this book looked at aggression in kids without getting dark about it. The protagonist isnt a bad person deep down or whatever he is just a frustrated and scared kid and expressing his feelings through an old fashioned Halloween rampage.A note for this and all the books in this series; do yourself a favor and get the audiobook. Its worth it for the full cast narration.

[rrhowell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is great fun, though not the best of the Magic Shop books. Still a good read.

[dorian125 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is about a boy named Russel that get bullied all the time.But one day he found a magic store and buy a ring that can tranforme in a monster. It was close to Halloween in the middle of a school year when the boy finally decide to use the and ring and get his revenge but then he gets a monster attitude.After using the ring too much,he stays being a monster,but at the end the magic store manager help and turn him back but Russel was a monsterevery full moon.He never use the ring after.I recoment this book for people that like monsters, magic and fantasie.

[stormraven_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first of the Magic Shop books, The Monster's Ring is a story about growing up, facing your fears, and learning how to confront difficulties without losing your head. It is also a silly story about dressing up and having fun on Halloween.Russell, the central character of the book, is a fifth grader who is fascinated by monster (owning a huge collection of monster comics) and even though some of his classmates say it is "kid stuff" is excited about the prospect of dressing as a monster for Halloween. To Russell's chagrin, his father doesn't listen to him, and his mother babies him. He is also tormented by the class bully Eddie. While fleeing his nemesis, Russell stumbles onto Mr. Elives magic shop, where the mysterious proprietor sells him "what he needs", a ring.The ring, it turns out, is magical, and by following some instructions included with it, Russell can turn himself into a monster complete with fur, horns, fangs, and claws. The instructions also say that each turn of the ring will make the transformation bigger and scarier, but warns of possible side effects. Russell, of course, ignores this warning. Using the ring seems to have the side effect of making Russell bolder and more pugnacious, resulting in a fight with Eddie in the cafeteria and a confrontation with Russell's father that finally gets him listening to Russell.Emboldened by his ability to turn into a scary monster, Russell decides to wear his monster shape as his costume for his class Halloween party. The "costume" is a big hit. Unfortunately, Russell finds himself acting in a most monster-like fashion, behavior he cannot control. The resulting trouble ends up in a confrontation with his mother in which Russell demands that she stop treating him like a baby.Finally, on Halloween Russell takes the last step and transforms into a hideous winged creature. Halloween is also the night of the full moon, so the transformation is extra powerful. During the night, Russell finds Eddie being bullied himself, and comes to his aid, eventually learning to understand his adversary, and even begins to feel sorry for him. In the end, Mr. Elives comes to Russell's rescue, and all ends well except for the minor side effect that Russell seems likely to turn into a monster every full moon.The story is, at its heart, a coming of age tale. Russell has to deal with growing up, changing from a little boy into a teenager (growing hair in odd places, uncontrollable urges, and increased assertiveness sure sounds like a boy starting puberty to me). He has to learn to balance his new assertive nature with a bit of sympathy and control, and that story is skillfully told with a humorous bent in this book. This is one of the few books aimed at kids about growing up that is subtle enough and funny enough that it seems to me that it would hold their attention.My copy of The Monster's Ring is a revised version. In his afterward, Coville explains that when he wrote it, he did not anticipate writing more Magic Shop books. He later revised this book to include cameos from some characters from later books, but based upon his description I don't think that the revision affects the story in any significant way (I can't be sure, since I have not seen the unrevised version). Coville also likes to sneak in references to other books aimed at young readers: in the early part of the story Russell reads Bellairs' The House With a Clock in its Walls. Overall, this is a great beginning to a very good series of books for children, and highly recommended for any elementary school age child.