Customer Reviews

Groosham Grange

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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!

Groosham Grange is a brill book, it is about a boy called David Eliot and he gets expelled from Beton College. He gets a letter from a school on the coast of Norway called Groosham Grange.He meets a girl called Jill and a boy called Jeffrey on a train to Norway.When they get to the train station they find a humpbacked person waiting to drive them to the school. When they
got there they found out that nothing was as they expected and far from normal. This is a book for people who like adventure and mystery books. Recommended for ages 7-13.

The characters in this book are stereotypical and flat--you've got the fat kid who seems like he will be a bigger secondary character but then disappears halfway through the story. Then there's the tomboy girl best friend that doesn't really do anything. I never bonded with the main character, and felt like he was just a puppet of the author, not a real person. Let's face it, we read books to escape not to follow a lifeless boy whose decisions make no sense. The ending doesn't add up, and we are never given the main character's thought process, so it just leaves you feeling like, "What the heck?" For such a short book, it kind of drags on.

It could almost be enjoyable except that every time you get interested in the plot, the author decides to throw a cheesy joke in. He also uses a couple characters at random points throughout the book to expound upon the horrors of Christianity--one character is a priest that Horowitz treats with a negative bias that completely breaks the narration. Then there is the teacher's soliloquy about how Christmas was never a Christian holiday and still isn't. They just don't fit with the book or the narration. It's like the author had a point to drive home and his treatment of it is awkward and lopsided.

Also, the father in the book is violently abusive. Horowitz tries to treat it as slapstick, but it's really kind of disturbing--for instance, in the beginning of the book the mother gets stabbed. There is also an attempted joke where the school inspector asks if a character is gay and is informed that the character certainly is queer. It's just not funny and it's inappropriate to joke with derogatory slurs like that in a kid's book.

Definitely not recommended!

When 13 year old David Eliot takes off on a train with two other new students for a school on an island that doesn't appear on any map, something is definitely not right. The other students at the school seem like zombies, no real teaching seems to be going on, the assistant headmaster appears to be a vampire, another teacher is a werewolf, and one seems to be over 600 years old. Escape seems impossible. Groosham Grange, we discover along with David, is a school for witches. Will David join them or succeed in getting away from this evil place? This may sound like a Harry Potter rip-off but was actually written before Harry Potter made this type of story so popular. The exaggerated style is a mixture of horror and comedy; this book would appeal to Harry Potter fans, particularly those who are reluctant readers and can't handle a long book. Because of its shorter length, it is much more accessible. The skillful mix of humor and horror make it a good read for boys, in particular

In Hollywood, there is a saying that "any publicity is good publicity." In most cases, I would disagree with that statement. But with Anthony Horowitz's Groosham Grange, that statement is very true.

This book has received a somewhat revitalizing surge in orders recently, due primarily to the constant comparison to Harry Potter. The books both concern fantasy schools, dark secrets, and themes that just *might* be too explicit for kids to be reading. There are a lot of instant haters of the book who call it a "rip-off" of the popular series and denounce it as poorly written or plotted. In reality, all of this "controversy (which really isn't big enough to call it even that) is good, because it is bringing a new readership to this book series, which really isn't all that bad.

Groosham Grange is about a young boy, David, who escapes his abusive parents and gets selected to go to a special school off the coast of Scotland. On the train there, he meets two friends, a boy and a girl, and together the three stick through it at their new, sinister academy. What ensues is a suspenseful mystery that delivers on many levels.

I had never read anything by Horowitz before I read this, and, honestly, still don't think I'll continue on to any of his other works. I am a high school senior and don't know if "young adult" is really my favorite genre anymore, but I do love Harry Potter, so I bought this book (cheap) and gave it a try.

I was surprised. When boiled down to summary form, the plot of this novel sounds incredibly like that of Harry Potter's. This novel, however, came first (1988, to be exact) and therefore has its own original authenticity. The book is actually quite dark, some scenes that are comedic have an almost Charles Dickens-esque way of making you laugh, but question the atrocities that are being comitted at the same time.

The writing is very simple and easy to get into. In fact, I read this book in day. Some may take that to mean that this is a short book, which, I'm not going to lie, it is. But its not all that much of a bad thing. There are no fluffy filler scenes, nor is there wasted description. It is refreshingly straightforward, revealing itself to be as well plotted as modern NY-Times bestsellers. At the same time, it isn't all too predictable. Although I figured out a few of the twists prematurely, there were still some surprises in store, and younger readers (for whom this book is intended) won't be able to recognize the clever tricks the author uses for plausibility.

As a whole, this novel (novella?) was a fun quick read, and I do plan on continuing with the next book in the series: Return to Groosham Grange: The Unholy Grail

Horowitz, author of the popular Alex Rider series, has written a different kind of novel for tweens. Groosham Grange is part humor, part horror, part mystery, and will appeal to tweens and teens 11+.

David is a twelve year old who has been kicked out of his private school. His parents are at their wit's end and don't know what to do with him. Then a letter arrives in the mail from Groosham Grange, a school that sounds perfect for David. It's on a secluded island that can only be reached by boat and the students only have one day off each year.

On his way to the school, David meets two other kids going to Groosham Grange. When they get there, they discover that some weird things are happening at this school, so they decide to stick together and plot an escape. To find out what strange and scary things are happening at Groosham, you will have to read the book. For fans of Alex Rider and the old Goosebumps series.

I think that this is a great book, but Anthony Horowitz should have made it longer!

Anthony Horowitz hasn't failed me yet. So when I saw GROOSHAM GRANGE on a table at Barnes & Noble, and I saw the name "Horowitz" across the cover, I grabbed it. And devoured it the next day.

The story centers around David, who after getting expelled from a very prestigious private school gets invited to come attend Groosham Grange, a special school on an island just off the coast of Norfolk. David's psychotic father sends him off that very day, and when David arrives at the school, he discovers that there is something very wrong with everyone. Something sinister lurks just around each drafty corner of the school, threatening to consume his very life. Can he escape before it's too late?

GROOSHAM GRANGE was a really easy read, and definitely had enough suspense to keep things going. After reading HOROWITZ HORROR, it was a little easy to guess where things might end up going though. And most of the "mystery" is pretty easy to figure out from little details Horowitz drops along the way.

The similarities to the HARRY POTTER novels do abound, and especially at one scene when David and Jill are being chased through the forest by a werewolf, I couldn't stop thinking how Potterish it felt. Other parts drift drastically from that formula though, and the plot is not nearly as complicated as anything Rowling would ever come up with.

All in all, GROOSHAM GRANGE delivers a quick read that will thrill fans of Tom Becker and of course Horowitz himself.

Clearly they're taking advantage of this author's successful runs with Alex Rider and The Gatekeeper series. Not his best work but still an easy read.