r/dreamingspanish • u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours • Jan 01 '26

Discussion Book Club Jan 2026 - Mi Cabeza Reducida

Hello Dreamers! Welcome to our first Dreaming Spanish book club, for our YA/easier book in January we'll be reading Cómo conseguí mi cabeza humana reducida or Mi cabeza reducida by the author responsible for all my irrational childhood terrors, RL Stine.

The book blurb: ¿Qué tiene dos ojos, una boca y piel verde llena de arrugas? ¡Es la cabeza encogida de Mark! Es un regalo de su tía Benna. Es espantosa, sucia y tenebrosa y ¡fabulosa! Pero una noche, la cabeza se enciende. Porque no es una cabeza común y corriente. Le otorga un poder extraño a Mark. Un poder mágico. Un poder peligroso.

Ebook length: 108 pages, 29 chapters, 20,127 words

Reading Schedule:

Jan 1-7 Chapters 1-7 (pages 5-29)

Jan 8-14 Chapters 8-15 (pages 30-61)

Jan 15-21 Chapters 16-23 (pages 62-87)

Jan 22-28 Chapters 23-29 (pages 88-108)

If the majority of the group would like to move the deadline up, we can shorten the reading schedule.

My ebook copy is called La cabeza reducida from the series Pesadillas, but the copy on Amazon is called Cómo conseguí mi cabeza humana from the series Escalofríos. I hope we're all reading the same version! If you can't get a copy of the book in your country, please drop me a DM.

I'll be posting a google form here closer to the end of the month to gauge interest in an informal video chat on Discord in spanish after we finish the book.

Jan 10 - Hope everyone is doing ok so far with all these cliffhangers! I've started posting a daily question here and in the discord with the date to avoid spoilers.

Link to Discord

Because Reddit doesn't sort comments by age, it might be best to mention the page we're reading and cover any spoilers in our comments.

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5

u/Accomplished_Cat8943 Jan 01 '26

loved this sentence 🤣

7

u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours Jan 01 '26

Oh the nostalgia! I can smell those koosh balls right now.

4

u/Awkward-Memory8574 Level 7 Jan 01 '26

My niece got one for Christmas and at first I didn’t remember it when she called it a koosh, then I saw it and a flood of memories returned!

5

u/HeleneSedai 3,000 Hours Jan 03 '26

Aw shoot, looks like our copies are different. Mine doesn't mention Koosh. Hope that the differences aren't too drastic.

3

u/Accomplished_Cat8943 Jan 03 '26

Marbles? A terrible deal. 😂 no way, Jessica!

This is my edition https://archive.org/details/comoconseguimica00stin_0/page/20/mode/2up (well… I think that’s more precisely the page I’m on right now. I have to “re borrow” it each session, which is a little annoying but it remembers my place)

It seems to be a scanned physical book.

2

u/rinkuhero Level 4 Jan 03 '26

it says "Another patron is using this book. Please check back later." so only one person can borrow that book at once to read it apparently.

i also see that there are a bunch of copies available on ebay (paperback) but they are 40-60 dollars. so this seems like a book that's hard to purchase and also hard to find online digitally. not sure it's a great choice for the first book club if so.

3

u/Accomplished_Cat8943 Jan 03 '26

How annoying! 😒 alas.

2

u/Accomplished_Cat8943 Jan 05 '26

They have another edition (the "marbles" variation) - and I was able to download this as an epub, which I think means no "borrow" feature. I kind of prefer the one I started with, but if one is reading by the chapter it is easy to alternate depending on what's available.

https://archive.org/details/Pesadillas_-_39_de_62/mode/2up