Plot-your-own stories book series in reading order

by R.L. Stine

R.L. Stine

589 books• 64 series

Robert Lawrence Stine, born October 8, 1943, is an American novelist who writes horror fiction for children. Goosebumps, the series Stine created, sold more than 400 million copies in 35 languages and grew into a franchise of two television series, video games, comics and two feature films. Fear Street, Stine's horror sequence for teenagers, passed 80 million copies and was adapted for film. Stine has been called the Stephen King of children's literature. The listing runs to 590 titles, from How to Be Funny (1978), published as Jovial Bob Stine, to How to Train Your Dummy, scheduled for 2027.

Jill Santopolo writes for children and for adults. The children's half of the catalogue holds the Alec Flint, Super Sleuth mysteries and the Sparkle Spa books, whose subjects are sisters, manicuring and beauty shops; the adult half holds the Light We Lost series and its treatment of love and man-woman relationships. Santopolo's 19 catalogued books span 2008 to 2025, from The Nina, the Pinta, and the Vanishing Treasure (2008) to The Love We Found (2025). Santopolo is actively publishing.

Chris Van Allsburg

20 books• 5 series

Chris Van Allsburg, born June 18, 1949, is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Jumanji (1981) and The Polar Express (1985), both written and illustrated by Van Allsburg, won Caldecott Medals and were later filmed, and The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (1979) was a Caldecott runner-up in 1980. Van Allsburg was the 1986 U.S. nominee for the International Hans Christian Andersen Award. The catalogue lists 20 books through The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie (2014), including The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984) and Two Bad Ants (1988).

Stephen Bly has 98 books in the catalogue, published from 1981 to 2013, and the list is likely complete. Radical Discipleship (1981) is the earliest, followed by Devotions with a Difference (1982) and God's Angry Side (1982), with Crystal's Blizzard Trek (1986) among the titles that followed and When the Cowboys Come to Town (2013) the newest. Bly series include Legend of Stuart Brannon, Code of the West, Crystal Blake Adventures, Adventures of Nathan T. Riggins, Fortunes of the Black Hills, Austin-Stoner Files, Hidden West, Old California and Heroines of the Golden West. Subjects include westerns, Christian life, women pioneers and the American West.