Killing Mr. Griffin
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Suspense
Themes: Classics, Schools
****
Description
High school is one of the most stressful times of a young person's life, and one bad grade can derail a teen's future.
In Mr. Griffin's English class, failure isn't just an option, it's almost a given. Nobody pushes students harder, with a
zero-tolerance policy for everything from tardiness to late assignments (even with legitimate excuses, such as family
emergencies). Nothing is ever good enough for him. He doesn't actually seem to like anyone or anything, and never bothers
explaining what he actually wants or clarifying his demands. He's the kind of teacher many students wish would just drop
dead.
Nobody actually expected him to die...
It was just supposed to be a prank, a way to rattle the stiff-necked man, maybe remind him that everyone - even he - has
a breaking point. Five of Mr. Griffin's students - shy good girl Susan, basketball star Jeff, senior class president
Daniel, head cheerleader Betsy, and troubled teen Mark - conspire to kidnap him after school and take him to a remote
spot in the hills, make him beg for his freedom, so he can feel one ounce of the desperation and helplessness that kids
feel in his classroom every day of the semester. But something goes terribly wrong. Now Mr. Griffin is dead. The more
the teens try to cover up the truth, the more comes undone, a snowball that will destroy far more than a failed class
ever could... and possibly claim even more lives.
Review
Every high school has at least one teacher that nobody likes, the relentlessly strict one who seems utterly incapable
of conceiving of students as human beings and never has a kind or even neutral word to offer, who walks a fine line
between setting "high expectations" and outright tormenting and degrading their classes (and would step over that line
more than once). Killing Mr. Griffin plays out the secret fantasy of more than one student of said teachers,
showing how they're pushed to the brink even as it shows his (somewhat faulty) reasons for being so harsh that he often
openly crosses into cruelty. It's one thing to set high standards, but it's another to completely ignore students who are
flailing and asking for help, or to forget that teenagers are still kids, and also humans, and therefore perfection at
all times and in all things is an unrealistic expectation. If you keep kicking kids while they're down, flaunting your
power over their lives and futures and setting up "damned if you do, damned if you don't" as their only experience,
something is bound to give.
What starts as a somewhat impulsive act spurred by frustration quickly snowballs out of control, little things going
wrong at every step to accumulate into much bigger problems down the line. The five teens each have their own reasons
for feeling justified in taking vengeance on the teacher, but once they find themselves with a dead body on their hands,
momentum and peer pressure keep them bound together in an increasingly ugly and messy conspiracy, dragging even good
girl Susan down to levels of deception she never imagined herself capable of. The story unfolds at a decent pace,
establishing why each kid feels justified in seeking vengeance against the teacher, what they think they'll get out of
it, and what they have to lose - and how everything goes sideways when the prank becomes more than just a simple
kidnapping. This being from 1978, there are some tinges of sexism that date the story, particularly the assumed roles
and capabilities of women (especially mothers), but the core high school experience hasn't changed much in the
intervening years; it's still a pressure cooker of hormones and confusion and bewilderment over a future rushing
headlong at kids who feel (and often are) entirely unprepared for adult expectations that are about to be thrust upon
them. I also found a few elements of the finale a bit too neat, given how everything else was falling apart by the
climax. Overall, though, this is a solid, decidedly dark tale of suspense and plans going terribly awry in the worst
possible way.