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[Killing Mr. Griffin] by Lois Duncan
★★★★1/2
From The Book:
They only meant to scare him.
Mr. Griffin is the strictest teacher at Del Norte High, with a penchant for endless projects and humiliating his students. Even straight-A student Susan can't believe how mean he is to the charismatic Mark Kinney. So when her crush asks Susan to help a group of students teach a lesson of their own, she goes along. After all, it's a harmless prank, right? But things don't go according to plan. When one "accident" leads to another, people begin to die. Susan and her friends must face the awful truth: one of them is a killer.
My Views:
If you have a few hours on your hands or just want to read something that doesn't weigh 500 pounds or is composed of 700 pages...this little jewel is your new best friend. In spite of someone thinking that it should be banned...it was one of the best books I've read this year. I guess I can see the reason for "banning" it but believe me teens read much worse than this every day.
We have all had a teacher like Mr. Griffin. A teacher that demanded that we actually work to get the grade. Most of us though don't respond by kidnapping said teacher and inadvertently killing them. The students are just too young or too immature to see things from Mr. Griffin's side...they just know that English is no longer the breeze it was last year. So a group of students decide to try and change things but the plan was a disaster waiting to happen from the start. one of the perpetrators was charismatic but with sociopathic tendencies...one was the class president and never thought he's be suspected.... one was a star athlete that everyone liked and admired... and then there was the "Queen Bee"...the one that gets voted home coming Queen just because she breathes. They needed a decoy so they enlist the class geek Susan because she just wants to be liked. Unfortunately for them this complicates things because she out of the entire group has a conscience. Things fall apart soon due to both poor planning and sheer bad luck.
Unlike some teen books, this one attempts to give the various adults' viewpoints as well as the students. It raises some questions about nature or nurture, but can, and should be read simply for entertainment.
