Down a Dark Hall

Down a Dark Hall

By Lois Duncan

Laurel-Leaf, 1974. 181 pages. Supernatural/suspense.

ISBN: 9780440918059

Reading/Interest Level: Ages 13+

Curriculum ties: Friendship, history

Booktalk Ideas: Chilling and thrilling: From Kit’s point of view, describe her decision to attend Blackwood and her immediate apprehension upon seeing the house. Describe/act out/summarize up to when the girls realize no one else is coming to the school.

Challenge Issues: N/A

Challenge Response: First Defense File

Reader’s Annotation:

When Kit is accepted to an exclusive boarding school and her best friend isn’t, Kit is reluctant to go but decides to give it a try for her mom’s sake. However, when strange things start happening she realizes the school is just a cover for what’s really going on.

Plot Summary:

When Kit’s mom gets remarried, Kit agrees to attend an exclusive boarding school she’s been accepted to while her mom and new husband are on their honeymoon. As they approach the school, way out in the country, Kit immediately gets a bad feeling as soon as she sees the large house. The house feels “evil” to her.

Kit says goodbye to her mother and new step-father and tries to settle in to the luxurious house and dorm room she has to herself, but the ominous feeling stays. She arrived one day early and looks forward to seeing all of the other girls that will be attending the school on the next day. That night, as she sleeps she is repeatedly woken from bad dreams and in the morning she is exhausted, feeling like she got very little sleep.

The other students start to arrive, but when the girls realize that it’s just the four of them they start to wonder about what kind of school their attending. As Kit investigates further, she realizes that the school is a front for something far more sinister.

Critical Evaluation:

As far as the writing goes, I didn’t feel like this book was as polished as it could have been, and some of the events seemed a little more contrived than was necessary. That being said, the story in general was fascinating and I loved the premise.

Kit was the only character that could clearly see what was wrong with the school, and at first I want to praise her as a character because she’s the only one that is willing to stop the horrible operation Madam Duret is running. Yet at the same time, I feel like the other characters, both the other students and the people Madam Duret was working with, should have shown more discomfort and concern with the operation than they did.

When analyzing the characters further, I suppose I can understand the reason the other teachers didn’t blow the whistle since Madam Duret only worked with people who thought like her. Regarding the students, I was originally surprised at Ruth who was clearly the most intelligent of the four, but despite her intelligence, or perhaps because of it, she didn’t want the experiment to end because she was learning so much new stuff. Perhaps the only reason Kit rebelled was because she was the only one being taken over by spirits to do something that she didn’t enjoy.

This book might be a bit harder for modern readers to relate to since it was written back in 1974 and things have changed a lot since that time. Modern technology and communication is vastly different than it was in the 70s and that might be hard for modern teens to relate to.

About the Author:

Lois Duncan grew up in Sarasota, Florida, the daughter of internationally known magazine photographers, Joseph and Lois Steinmetz. She has one younger brother.  From early childhood, she knew she wanted to be a writer. She submitted her first story to a magazine at the age of ten and made her first sale at thirteen to a magazine called Calling All Girls. Throughout her high school years she wrote regularly for young people's magazines, particularly Seventeen.

In 1962, Lois moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she taught for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico and continued to write for magazines. Over 300 of her articles and short stories appeared in such publications as Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest, and for a number of years she was a contributing editor for Woman's Day.

Lois is also the author of 48 books, ranging from children's picture books to adult novels, but she is best known for her young adult suspense novels. Many of those have been chosen as American Library Association "Best Books for Young Adults" and Jr. Literary Guild Selections, and they have won Young Readers Awards in 16 states and three foreign countries. In 1992, Lois received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the School Library Journal and the Young Adult Library Services Association, to honor a living author for a distinguished body of adolescent literature.

Lois has also written novels and non-fiction books for adults, including Who Killed My Daughter?, the true story of her search for the truth behind the brutal murder of the youngest of her five children, eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn.  Although written for adults, this book has been embraced by young people.

Lois is married to Don Arquette, and their children are also highly creative.  Robin Arquette (Burkin) is a singer and composer and collaborated with her mother on a series of musical CDs for children called “Songs of Childhood.”   Kerry Arquette writes children’s books – the most recent two are Daddy Promises and What Did You Do Today? – and is also co-owner and editor-in-chief of Cantata Publishing Company.  Brett Arquette is the author of three adult novels, two of them horror books, and the third – Tweaked – something even stranger.  Donnie Arquette is a free soul who does his own thing, but is an extremely talented artist.

-from author’s website-

Justification of Selection:

To get their hearts racing, teens should have some horror and suspense novels available. This is a good, clean, horror novel.