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Summary
Summary
Thirteen-year-old David Eliot was a disappointment to his parents. But to be sent to Groosham Grange? Hidden away on a lonely island, Groosham Grange is a school that is unknown to the outside world. Pupils forced to sign their names in blood. An English teacher held together entirely with bandages. A soccer ball made of . . . well, you'd rather not know. What is the chilling secret hidden behind the headmaster's door? And why are students disappearing in the middle of the night? Suddenly, David has a lot more to worry about than pleasing his parents'like survival!
Author Notes
Author and television scriptwriter Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, England on April 5, 1956. At the age of eight, he was sent to a boarding school in London. He graduated from the University of York and published his first book, Enter Frederick K. Bower (1979), when he was 23. He writes mostly children's books, including the Alex Rider series, The Power of Five series, and the Diamond Brothers series.
The Alex Rider series is about a 14-year-old boy becoming a spy and was made into a movie entitled Stormbreaker. He has won numerous awards including the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award for Groosham Grange and the 2003 Red House Children's Book Award for Skeleton Key. He also writes novels for adults including The Killing Joke and The Magpie Murders. He has created Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders for television as well as written episodes for Poirot and Murder Most Horrid. He made The New York Times Best Seller list with his titles The House of Silk Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin and Moriarity.Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis. Anthony was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-This dark, sinister tale, which reads like a cross between Lemony Snicket's books (HarperCollins) and R. L. Stine's "Goosebumps" series (Scholastic), involves maniacal parents, supernatural monsters, and some difficult choices for its characters. David Eliot's parents make the Dursleys from "Harry Potter" seem like a loving family. Not only are they mentally abusive, but they are also horrifyingly physically abusive (Mr. Eliot throws a knife at David and is nonplussed when it ends up in his wife's chest instead). After David is expelled from school, a mysterious letter arrives, offering him a place at a boarding school located on its own island off Norfolk, England. On the train trip to Groosham Grange, David meets a boy and girl who have also been sent away for not measuring up to standards. Once they arrive, they discover strange, otherworldly teachers and students who behave in a secretive manner, rising from their beds at midnight and disappearing without a trace. David and his friends must discover the secret of Groosham Grange before their 13th birthdays, when they will be forced to make a difficult decision that will change their lives forever. Though the author portrays punishments and moments of cruelty as absurd and unrealistic, these instances may disturb some readers. Still, the mysteries, elements of witchcraft and the supernatural, and occasional instances of humor may appeal to fans of (mostly) bloodless horror.-Debra Banna, Sharon Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Twelve-year-old David has exasperated his parents with his underachieving ways for the last time. As a lucky coincidence, they receive a letter inviting David to attend Groosham Grange just as he is expelled from another school. They're thrilled, especially since Groosham touts its reputation for straightening out malcontents like David. He and two others he meets on the train there are immediately suspicious of it, however. The school's pupils are eerily, vacantly adoring of the sinister old building and its creepy staff. The mystery deepens one night when David awakens to see them all trooping off into the library, where they vanish. Bursts of dark slapstick humor (such as David's dad accidentally stabbing his mom in the opening chapter) mix oddly with its light horror plot, and unsubtle foreshadowing stunts the suspense. Fans of Horowitz will form a natural readership for what looks to be the first in a new series, but whether they will find this as satisfying as his more carefully developed works is questionable. (Horror. 9-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Horowitz takes a step away from his Alex Rider series to fashion a funny little spot of horror for a younger set of readers in this riff on the classic boarding-school tale. After David Elliot is expelled from a private school, he is invited to enroll in a mysterious boarding school called Groosham Grange. The school, a sort of bizarro Hogwarts, has a faculty of vampires, ghouls, and worse, and all the students have phony names, sport matching black-stone rings, and don't seem to mind being taught by monsters. For the most part, David's subsequent adventures and attempts to escape the school are more zany than scary, but there's still plenty of yikes moments and eerie passages peppered among the silliness. The cartoonishly evil folks at Groosham make a fine point that as bad as they may seem, they've never dropped an atomic bomb on anyone, and are just the sort of rather pleasantly evil characters ideal to give kids a few goose bumps in between snickers.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2008 Booklist
