A granny hell-bent on evil
If you think all grannies are kind old ladies with white hair who bake cookies for their grandchildren, you would be wrong, very wrong. Mention the word 'granny' to Joe Warden and he will shiver and go pale with fear. Joe's granny is, without mincing words, a monster. She is nasty and causes trouble whenever she can. You have to feel sorry for Joe and his parents because their lives are ruined by this malicious old woman.
Eleven-year-old Joe Warden lives in Thattleby Hall with his rich parents, who have as little to do with him as possible. Mr Warden is too busy making money, and Mrs Warden has a busy social calendar. Joe's only friends are Mrs Jinks, his ex-nanny, and Mr Lampy, the gardener.
Mr and Mrs Warden are terrified of Granny, and with good reason. Whenever the old lady comes to stay at Thattleby Hall it is like a fox entering a chicken pen. Granny's real name is Ivy Kettle. She is in her nineties, always smells of overpowering perfume and wears too much makeup. She has a moustache on her upper lip and a massive mole hanging off her chin. And she has beady, snake-like eyes that bore into you like laser beams.
Joe cannot understand the pleasure that Granny gets by being mean to him. She buys him embarrassing birthday and Christmas presents, and whenever he has to go and visit her she feeds him disgusting food, forcing him to eat it. But now that Joe is growing up he suspects that there is something really evil going on in Granny's mind and he desperately begins to fear for his safety.
He talks to his nanny about his suspicions and to his horror, Granny turns a pack of dogs onto poor Mrs Jinks to get her out of the way. Then suddenly, Mr Lampy, Joe's only other friend, dies in mysterious circumstances. As the story unfolds, Joe finds out more disgusting things about Granny and he feels utterly powerless. Who can poor Joe turn to now?
Anthony Horowitz's Granny is a wonderful mix of bizarre humour and scary situations. With Granny Kettle, Horowitz has created a frightening old hag to rival anything dreamed up by the great Roald Dahl. Reading this book makes you cringe and shiver, but it is also great fun. Comic stories with a bite are a rare commodity in young people's fiction these days, so the black humour of a book like Granny comes as a welcome surprise. You might feel a bit guilty laughing at all the awfulness Granny Kettle throws at the poor Warden family, but you know that she is going to get her comeuppance at the end. Or is she? The old bag might just have one final evil idea up her sleeve.