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Reviewed by:
  • Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan
  • April Spisak
Mulligan, Andy Ribblestrop. Beach Lane/Simon, 2014 [384p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-399-16449-1 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-9906-5 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys     R* Gr. 6-9

Boarding schools have been a common component of British youth lit, but there has never been a school quite like Ribblestrop. Sure, the roof may be gone and the rent can’t be paid and there aren’t very many students yet, but the headmaster has enough grand vision to compensate for all of that. The school motto is “life is dangerous,” and it’s certainly true at Ribblestrop: the few students there are bonked on the head, stumble upon horrific secret underground experiments, are forced to sip rum to ward off freezing, and are part of multiple near-death events. Luckily, this is a particularly resilient bunch of kids, and they face obstacles with a fairly intact sense of humor if not always gritty determination. The book is cheerfully outrageous, and drunken kiddos making up the school song and adults trying to drill holes in children’s brains to make them more obedient aren’t for everyone, but Mulligan craftily pushes boundaries without being gratuitous. Somehow, it all makes perfect sense at Ribblestrop, and the intense friendships that form out of shared adversity offer these kids more family than most of them have ever known. One can only hope that the sequel wends its way across the ocean too, and that it is every bit as rollicking, ridiculous, and captivating as this outing was. [End Page 49]

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