This really is for older children - those who say they hate school but underneath all their complaints will miss it when they leave. Written in rhyme, the story is about Honor Brown, who hates school so much she wishes it would burn down. The wonderful illustrations show us a school straight out of gothic horror - dinners of worms, rabbit-poo and coal, children beaten, thrown out of windows, heads cut off (and displayed on plaques on the wall!), friends who shoot Honor off into space, a sandpit that's a 'smelly swamp', and in P.E. the kids are hung - literally - by ropes. It's only on the last two pages that we find Honor leaving what looks like an ordinary school in tears: 'Whatever's wrong?' I ask her, 'You no longer have to go.' But Honor Brown just howled and sobbed...'I'll really miss it though!' Splendid!