SuitabookWitherwood Reform School
Obert Skye
- Reading
- If frightening situations are a concern, read the opening together and pause before the mind-control escape scenes. Discuss whether the jokes make the danger easier or harder to bear.
- Themes
- Sibling loyalty under pressure: Tobias and Charlotte rely on their bond and different abilities while trying to escape a dangerous school. The story presents their loyalty and cooperation as important strengths in dealing with danger.
- Authority and failed care: The father leaves the children at the school, while the headmaster controls children and other adults are described as misguided or evil. Adult authority is shown as unreliable or harmful in the situation described, while the children must act resourcefully.
- Dark humour and frightening experience: The book combines monsters, captivity, mourning and abandonment with bodily jokes and a comic fantasy style. Humour appears to sit alongside emotionally harsh situations, potentially making the frightening material feel lighter for some readers and more uncomfortable for others.
- Worth knowing
- Pay particular attention to the opening abandonment, the tadpole incident, frightening creatures, locked spaces and the method used to break mind control. Bathroom and fart humour are also present.