75

Not bad. Not sure what kids will make of it as written 30 years ago. Year 7s go on a seaside camp and in the middle of the night Felicity (Fliss) notices one of the other student go into a cupboard. A cupboard with the no.13 on it although in daylight, there is nothing there. Is she sleepwalking? Why won't any of the teachers believe Fliss? She and three others ( 2 boys and a girl) wait the next night to see what happens.
Sort of spooky. I must admit I LOVED the way the teachers in this told off the kids...Swindells was hilarious at this.
Some of the slang/language is very English and kids in Australia may not understand it ( )

Fliss’s class are off to the seaside village of Whitby. The night before they go, Fliss has a terrible nightmare, where she walks through a spooky house and has to open the door to Room 13. In the morning everything seems normal … at least until they arrive, and Fliss recognises the house from her dream. There’s a lot of things about that house that can’t be explained… like where is Room 13? And what is wrong with poor Ellie May?

Because it’s a school trip, Fliss’s classmates learn a lot about Whitby and its past.. Along with the students, the reader gets informed about how Whitby was significant for whaling, for Captain Cook, and for Bram Stoker- the author of the novel Dracula.

But in between learning, the students get to enjoy sports, swimming, shopping, and other holiday amusements. Fliss spends some time talking to the residents, and finds that the so-called “Mad Sal” has some unusual ideas, besides knowing all about the mysterious house, Ellie-May’s symptoms, and Fliss’s dream.

Room 13 only appears on the stroke of midnight. During the daytime, when Fliss finally persuades a teacher to open that unmarked door, it contains nothing but sheets and towels. But every night, while Fliss and her friends watch, Ellie-May seems to sleep-walk right inside. As Ellie May gets sicker and sicker by day, Fliss forms a theory about what - or who- might really be in there.

Even with some pretty weird goings-on in the middle of the night, the author manages to re-create perfectly the atmosphere of a school trip or camp. Robert Swindells has been a teacher himself, and knows exactly how to write the way teachers talk to kids. This helps the reader to really feel a part of the action. It’s easy to wonder “how would I react?” when you feel like you’ve had a teacher saying just those kind of things to you.

This is a book about school, vampires, disobedience, and making new friends. I would recommend it for 9-14 year old readers who like to feel scared, or who like good to triumph over evil.

One of the scariest children's books I've ever read. a group of children go on a school trip to whitby, the home of dracular. whilst there, 4 of them compelled to do strange things; sharpen a bar of rock, buy a torchwithout permission... and all the while a girl in their class is getting sicker, and it's up to them to save her. ( )

Inspired by a trip to the Riviera Hotel, Whitby.. ( )