Room 13 - Robert Swindells

First published in 1989, this children's horror book became a sensation for my twelve year old friends and I after we discovered it in the school library. Word of mouth made this book so sought after that in order to guarantee getting to read it we had to share it between our groups of friends or read it out loud together. We had so little chance to get our hands on it that we had to read it on our journey home from school! A few facts about the book make it tantalising to young fans of horror or chiller stories. Firstly, printed inside the jacket of the book is the claim that this story was inspired by a real school trip to Whitby in 1987. Furthermore, the ...  Read the complete review

After recently reading two novels by Robert Swindells – Brother in the Land and Abomination – I felt I had become quite a fan, even if he is a children’s’ writer and I’m 33! So I bought another of his and borrowed two more from the library. This is my review of Room 13, a novel published in 1989 and the winner of the 1990 Children’s Book Award. Room 13 is a horror or thriller type of book for children aged around ten to fourteen, I would say. At just over 150 pages long, it is easy to read and after a slightly hesitant start, I finished the last hundred pages or so in one sitting. The chapters are fairly short throughout, ...  Read the complete review

After re-reading and really enjoying Robert Swindell's Post Nuclear story Brother in the Land I was inspired to read one of his other books (a boy returned it in the library and I snaffled it for myself) ~ Room 13. Room 13 is a very different story to Brother in the Land and I vaguely remembered reading it years ago. I once read that the reason that children, young adults and teenagers like Swindell's books is because they are not too long, keep your interest and are pretty easy to read (by this I mean the use of language and not the subject matter ~ I wouldn't call the images used in Brother in the Land particularly "easy"). Room 13 seems to fit ...  Read the complete review