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(More customer reviews)Anthony Horowitz today is better known for his successful Alex Rider series (which have also been turned into movies) but back when I was a kid he wrote the best comedy thrillers and comedy horror junior paperbacks you could find. Groosham Grange first published back in 1988 is easily up there with the best of his career's work. I just reread it today and it is even better than I remembered it. You definitely don't have to still be a kid either to enjoy it.
I guess the closest comparison to this storyline would be the first book of the Harry Potter series although this is a lot less magicy and more kid monsters/horror. Obviously J.K. Rowling read this book as a kid herself before coming up with her successful series.
In Groosham Grange 12 year old David Eliot is expelled from school. His abusive father isn't too pleased, nor does his mother stick up for him either and goes along with his dad's evil plans usually while being the victim of domestic violence herself. When a letter addressed to his father seems to magically arrive just when he is thinking up punishment explaining that a school located on an island off the Norfolk (part of the UK) coastline is heavily into discipline and doesn't expect the parents to ever visit at all he decides to send David there.
On route to the school David meets two other new classmates, Jeffrey and Jill. They decide to stick together no matter what. What is however not anything they could have expected! From the train station they are driven in a hearse to a rusty boat which takes them to the island. There they made to sign onto the registry with their own blood, the teachers are weird, the history teacher is old, bald and wrapped in bandages. The French teacher disappears every full moon, the Latin teacher teaches in darkness by candlelight with the blinds closed because he doesn't like the sun and why does the headmaster's door's sign say The Heads? The food doesn't resemble any animal they used to eat and where do all the other students disappear to after midnight? Why does everyone keep mentioning how fortunate David is to be born the seventh son of a seventh son? These are just some of the weird things going on at Groosham Grange. David and Jill want to leave but you're never supposed to leave Groosham without graduating. The school even has its own cemetery!
Horowitz is a great author. Another book you absolutely must read is called Granny. It's the story of the evilest Granny on the planet who plans to attend the Golden Granny Awards where she can compete for awards such as making everyone at the post office wait for the longest amount of time, the longest time to get on bus, most difficult shopper, the most unnecessary visits to a doctor and many other awards. The evil grannies of the world also have a new invention that will make them young again, all they need is the enzymes of a young boy and what better boy to use than her own grandson!
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