A fun and fantastical school adventure that refuses to take itself too seriously. Forget about Hogwarts, young readers will be aspiring to join lessons in Defiance and Discourtesy at Gangster School.
Millie Dillane and Charlie Partridge are starting secondary school. This is, however, a school with a difference. This is Blaggard’s (otherwise known as Gangster School) and they’re about to start their training for a life of crime. The stakes are high. Failure at Blaggard’s almost certainly means a transfer to the terrifying Crumley’s School for Career Criminals. Millie and Charlie are determined to do everything they can to avoid that fate but they soon have bigger things to worry about when they accidently uncover a plot by one of the school’s most infamous former students, Pecunia Badpenny, to take over the school and then the world.
Gangster School: the title alone made me want to read this book. Perhaps because I always enjoy a middle-grade school story or, maybe, because I wanted to see how it compares to one of my all-time favourite school adventures – Mark Walden’s HIVE (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) series.
Both books focus on the training of the next generation of criminal masterminds and it’s simply great fun to discover the essential lessons required. At Blaggard’s the lessons include Thievery along with Fabrication, Betrayal, Stealth, Hacking, Plotting and – the one that many child readers may want to study – Defiance and Discourtesy. Then there’s life outside of lessons. When not in class, our young students are expected to decorate their rooms with images of the most notorious lawbreakers and take part in criminal activities such as competing to win the Lightfinger trophy for ‘unlawful redistribution’. (The prize goes to the team who manage to steal the most valuable object).
The main difference between the two books is the tone (Gangster School is deliberately tongue-in-cheek) and the main characters. Whereas Mark Walden’s protagonists can’t deny their aptitude for crime, Millie and Charlie struggle to fit in. Despite their parents’ commitment to wrongdoing, both Millie and Charlie are uncomfortable with the concept. Their nature is simply too… dependable. (The ‘Dependables’ being the non-criminal population – the Blaggard’s equivalent to muggles in Harry Potter).
While young readers are likely to identify with Millie and Charlie, the character that really stood out for me was undoubtedly the evil Head Teacher, Greselda Martinet. Indeed, there are unmistakable echoes of the hugely successful Demon Headmaster series.
The plot rattles along at a good pace. We are quickly drawn in by the outstanding opening where Millie has to intervene to stop a toddler picking an unsuspecting Charlie’s pockets. (I just loved the way the toddler’s parents praised her attempt!) From there on, the story becomes increasingly fantastic, refusing to take itself too seriously. I particularly enjoyed the scenes with the amazing, and occasionally invisible, electronic dog – Wolf or should we say Wolfie?
If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out the Demon Headmaster series. I particularly liked the Demon Headmaster – Total Control. Or why not try an adventure in another school with a difference in Natasha Farrant’s The Children of Castle Rock.
ISBN: 978-1999863319
Publication date: May 2018
Publisher: ZunTold
Pages: 192
Author’s website: Kate Wiseman
