But how can spooky stories be awesome friendly?
Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories is a book that is the third in the Awesome Friendly series, coming after Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure. It is about Rowley Jefferson's spooky stories, and don't worry, they're friendly. It came out on March 16, 2021.
This book contains 14 chapters: The Changing, The Prankster, Ghost Friend, The Biter, The Human Head, The Scanner, The Cellar, The Nap, The Stain, a mummy, The Science Project, The Medicine Cabinet, The Invasion, and The Demon.
BOO! Did that scare you? If it did maybe you should pick something else that's a bit less scary:
- Actually Not a Vampire: Lilli in The Biter is thought to be a vampire since she had sharp teeth and really liked to bite things. It turns out she just likes to bite things, though her parents still tell people that Lilli is a vampire since that got her a lot of friends.
- Advertised Extra: Greg appears in promotional material as a zombie. When he appears, it's at the very end of the book and he only appears a few times, plus he isn't a zombie but rather a demon.
- Alien Invasion: At the end of The Invasion, a big UFO comes to Fairville. Since letting the enemies in worked last time, the town does the same plan again. Unlike the zombies, the aliens use this to their advantage, and soon the entire town is no more.
- all lowercase letters: The title for a mummy.
- Artistic License – Geography: In a mummy, the Tokyo Skytree and the Daikanransha are right next to each-other, and the same goes for the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. Justified, as Rowley is just a kid and probably didn't study enough to know this.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: In The Prankster, Jasper was a huge prankster, and sometimes he annoyed the townsfolk. So the entire town fakes his death, and when Jasper realizes he's dead he goes to his funeral because he felt like he had to. Sure enough, people start laughing and Jasper realizes he got duked.
- Author Avatar: Many of the characters look like or behave like Rowley.
- Big Friendly Dog: Parodied. A certain character in The Science Project acts just like a dog, and is extremely loyal. This character is... Frankenstein's monster.
- Bilingual Bonus: In a mummy, Mekh goes around destroying things as revenge for being put in a museum. One of the newspapers says “ミイラ、東京を破壊” ("miira, Tokyo o hakai"), which is Japanese for "mummy destroys Tokyo".
- Black Speech: Greg says this in The Demon thinking it's just something from a movie, and ends up turning into a demon.
- Buried Alive: Aunt Fannie is buried alive because her family thought she was dead. She had brought Senior S.O.S., luckily, so she alerts workers that she's buried and they come save her.
- Chummy Mummy: When Khaba is discovered, he's pretty chill with the new world, and is actually interested in all the new gadgets. His niceness causes him to become an overnight celebrity.
- Constantly Curious: Ryan in The Medicine Cabinet liked to check in every nook and cranny of his house because he liked to explore his house. Until he searched the medicine cabinet.
- Content Warnings: The book starts out with a parody of a warning (quoted at the very top of the tropes list) telling us to read some other book if we can't handle horror.
- Defanged Horrors: Not many of the stories are outright horrific, often having some sort of wholesome twist on them by the end. This is intentional, since it's Rowley writing the book, and he's easily scared himself.
- Demonic Possession: In The Demon, Greg recites a demonic message from a horror movie to prove it's nothing. Sure enough, he gets possessed and trashes the house. Or ''is'' he possessed?
- Downer Ending: Happens a couple times.
- Happens in Ghost Friend, where Rusty’s grades are lowered dramatically and can’t get a job or wife because Gabe had bothered him so much he couldn’t focus on a single thing.
- Happens in The Nap, where Aunt Fannie dies at the beginning of Summer vacation and none of her family realized it until the week was halfway over.
- Happens in The Stain, where Robbie accidentally triggers his dad's allergy to strawberry, causing the previously-defeated strawberry stain to reappear on his crisp white shirt.
- Happens for the final time in The Invasion, where a UFO appears on top of the town. The citizens decide to be nice to the aliens because that worked with the zombies, and the aliens kill the humans and zombies, taking over the city.
- Dr. Fakenstein: Victor ends up becoming a Dr. Frankenstein parody, but is actually expanded upon because he does more than create Frankenstein. Of course, Frankenstein is still his most famous creation, but Victor did some cool stuff.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Downplayed, as not many lies are told. In The Stain, Robbie drops one of two ice creams he brought and tells a lie that the ice cream he dropped was his dad's and not his (for some reason). This causes a strawberry ice cream stain to appear on his crisp white shirt, so he washes it and lies that he's simply just doing a load of laundry. He wakes up the next day to find out the strawberry stain turned all the clothes pink. This stresses Robbie out so much he tries to sneak out, but is caught by his parents.
- Friendly Skeleton: All the skeletons in The Scanner. This is quite obvious, since they are still real people, just that they've been turned into skeletons by the scanner.
- Friendly Zombie: In The Invasion, the mayor decides to just let the zombies in and be nice to them. Turns out, it was Crazy Enough to Work, and the zombies decide that they want to be nice too, and are accepted into society.
- Headless Horseman: He appears in The Human Head, and his name is Gunther. The reason he became evil was because his crush chose his friend Anders over him, making him jealous. He actually strikes during Valentines Day and not Halloween, unlike most people think.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Aside from Ghost Friend and a mummy, every story is named "The ____".
- Lost Food Grievance: In The Stain, after Robbie drops his rocky road ice cream, he gets so upset he nearly cries.
- Monumental Damage: During Mekh's rage, he destroys the Eiffel Tower, damages the Arc de Triomphe, and burns the Tokyo Skytree and the Daikanransha.
- Never Say "Die": In Ghost Friend, Rusty's best friend Gabe dies for no reason, but Rowley doesn't say he dies because "it's way too sad for a kids book". It becomes pointless quickly because Gabe is confirmed dead two pages later.
- New Technology Is Evil: In The Cellar, Rafe is kept from the world for his entire life. The reason for this is because the world was too hooked on technology to be good, so his parents isolated him so he wouldn't get addicted to a screen as well. Unfortunately, Rafe's parents thought he could be trusted to have a job and have a phone at the same time, and Rafe ends up getting hooked.
- Older Than They Look: It turns out Ryan's parents are actually 114 and 112. Ryan doesn't want to say it out loud, but that's old.
- Prank Gone Too Far: After the town pranks Jasper, he's told that it wasn't a prank; a meteor came the night before and wiped out the town. Jasper realizes that if he's a ghost, he can fly, and tries to fly to Paris. The townsfolk realize they took things too far when Jasper ends up falling off a lighthouse.
- The Prankster: Jasper is. After all, his story is called "The Prankster".
- Red Sock Ruins the Laundry: When Robbie puts his stained clothes in the washer, he wakes up the next day to find the clothes are all pink, including his dad's nice shirt.
- Ridiculously Alive Undead: Parodied. When the zombies first arrive in Fairville, they acted as generic zombies, hands in front and all. But when they become friendly, they're able to talk, use swingsets, and learn. One even becomes mayor of Fairville.
- Sore Loser: Why does Victor create Frankenstein and become a famous scientist? Because he got second place in a science project, and held a petty grudge.
- Stripped to the Bone: In The Scanner, the titular scanner somehow transforms people into skeletons. They're all still alive, fortunately.
- Sudden Downer Ending: In The Prankster, Jasper is tricked by the townsfolk into believing that everyone including him died when a meteor hit the town. This only results in Jasper deciding to try and fly to Paris due to thinking that he was a ghost. However, he ends up throwing himself off the lighthouse instead, and is implied to have died, meaning that the townsfolk had caused the death of a child.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Gabe just... dies. No reason why he dies, all we know is that he's a ghost now and he's dead.
- We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: When the aliens attack Fairville, all the citizens let them in assuming that would soften them up. Believe it or not, it doesn't work.
- Wonderful Werewolf: When Rowan finds out he's a werewolf, he stays the same good kid and just intimidates people so he doesn't get bullied. This makes his parents realize it's okay to be werewolves in public too.
- Well, I Warned You.
