At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all.

When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively.

Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. 9-13)Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. The one false note is Jessie's belated and rather facile acceptance of her father's alcoholism (somehow linked to Miss Müller's acceptance of her own father's Nazism), but it's not enough to spoil a good story well told. Bunting ( The In-Between Days, 1994, etc.) shows the confusion and hysteria that wartime brings to the lives of the young, and in the process paints a true-to-life and often very funny picture of boarding school life in a more innocent era. Even so, the girls' discovery forces Miss Müller to leave the school and Jessie, at least, must live with her guilt. But war is war the girls begin their vigil, and learn that the teacher is engaged in romantic - and not wartime - assignations.

Jessie joins in, saddened because the woman has always been exceptionally kind to her. After one of these forays, Belfast is bombed for the first time, and the girls resolve to catch Miss Müller in the act. Then, caught up in the anti-German fervor of the day, 13-year-old Jessie and her friends convince themselves that the teacher is creeping up to the roof to signal German observers with her flashlight.

Miss Müller - half-Irish, half-German - is a favorite of the girls at Belfast's Alveara School until the start of WW II.

Spying on miss muller by eve bunting