Killing Mr Griffin by Lois Duncan

I know there have been a few teachers in everyone's lives who have never been very popular among their students.  There is such a teacher in this novel.  Mr. Griffin, a young and not necessarily popular English teacher rubs many students the wrong way with his strict rules and grading.  These kids want to teach Mr. Griffin a lesson.  Unfortunately, the lesson is one that goes horribly wrong, and one that these kids will learn from for the rest of their lives.

What starts out as a plan among some students to teach Mr. Griffin a lesson in being humbled, ends up scary and very real for most of them.  It begins with a small circle of friends who decide to follow a plan made by one of them to "Scare" Mr. Griffin.  They want to kidnap and take him to a secluded place in the woods, tie him up and cause him to "beg" for his life.  The leader, Mark, assures everyone, especially the most vulnerable and caring of them all - Susan - no harm will befall their teacher.

Their plan is a success and they are able to kidnap Mr. Griffin.  After they tie him up and tease him a bit, they decide to leave their teacher in the woods alone....tied up....Susan and David, another from the group, decide to go back and free their teacher, but a horrible discovery awaits them.

This story is a fun one to read.  It keeps you wondering about the mind's of teens, are bad and good born that way, what does peer pressure really mean? The surprises that are in the pages of this book kept my attention.  It was very well written and made me realize that sometimes the parents really don't know what is going on in their kid's lives, no matter how much we think we communicate with them, and in this book the consequences are scary.  A teen read, very highly recommended... ****