The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

The Werewolf of Fever Swamp is a Goosebumps novel by R. L. Stine, published in 1993. The book is written for middle-grade readers and was one of the earlier titles in the original Goosebumps run.

The structure is a case of mistaken blame. Grady has acquired a dog that resembles a wolf, nocturnal howling begins in the neighbourhood, and a rabbit is discovered killed. The community's conclusion is immediate and Grady's defence is personal rather than evidential, since he knows the animal and the evidence points the other way. Grady and his family have moved from Vermont to Florida because his father, a scientist, wants to find out whether swamp deer brought from South America can survive beside the swamp.

The supernatural element is introduced as a question about the dog and then complicated, because a full moon and a transformed creature are both in play before the book resolves who or what is responsible. Swamp settings recur in this kind of children's horror because they provide a boundary the characters can cross, and the title names Fever Swamp as the place where the danger lives.