The Daring Game

The Daring Game

By Kit Pearson

Summary:


Eleven year old Eliza is going to boarding school in Vancouver for the first time ever. She is very excited but shares her parents' worries and believes that she will soon become homesick. Eliza has read many stories of girls who attend English boarding schools, but she knows that her life at Ashdown Academy will not be the same as in her books. At the same time Eliza is more afraid than ever that her new dorm-mates won't like her...

When she arrives at Ashdown Academy she instantly becomes best friends with one of her dorm-mates, Carrie, who is an American border at the school. Pam, Jean and Helen are Eliza's (and Carrie's) other dorm-mates. Pam is the Yellow Dorm head and has a bossy personality. Jean is a shy little girl from Scotland and Helen is mischievous, unpredictable and daring. While Eliza gets to know her dorm-mates, she still can't figure out whether to be friends with Helen. She is always getting into trouble, never doing her school work and she steals.

After Helen complains that nothing exciting is happening at the Academy she decides to start a game: a daring game. Every month a name will be picked and there will be a dare. To succeed a player must break the school rules during every dare and not get caught.  Eliza has never broken a school rule and she has promised her parents that she will be good and not get into trouble while she is at Ashdown. Eliza suddenly gets pulled into Helen's game as do her other dorm-mates. She is not sure that she wants to play.

A moths fly by the dares get harder and Eliza's name is still not picked. As she see her friends tackle the dares she is worried about when her name will be picked and what her dare will be...


Review:

I will start off by saying that I have read this book numerous times when I was about nine years old. I was looking for a fun book to read about two weeks ago and I came across The Daring Game. I looked at it's paperback cover and it was very worn! I thought that since I hadn't read read it in a while and it looked loved, that I would read it one last time. I think that now that I am twelve I am not as interested in the story as I was a couple years ago. I think that the age range that corresponds to The Daring Game is 8-11 years old. After age eleven I think that this book would not be as fun and exiting as it appears at first. 

The Daring Game is an interesting and different book because there is not just one dare for all the four girls but each girl has their own dare. Each girl has their own adventure and their own experience of punishment but at the same time of self-accomplishment.

The Daring Game is not like some other stories about a girls boarding school. First of all, because the story takes place in the city not in the countryside and because it is in 'modern' day. We don't know the exact year that the story takes place in but with some hints in the book we can tell its contemporary.

I really think that The Daring Game is a book that a lot of girls would like because of the 'modern' side of the story and also because the story focuses on more than one person. It is a kind of advantage because you can get four sides of a story but at the same time you get to see four different lifestyles that the girls live at Ashdown Academy.

I don't really know what else to say about The Daring Game except that I loved it, but I think that that was my last time reading it! Wonderful job Kit Pearson (author)! Many tweens will enjoy this book. I would recommend this book to any tween under the age of 12.

221 pages

Be sure to watch for the new 'Top 10 Books' page where you can find my list of top 10 books and extra comments (not in the reviews) on the books coming out on the 25th of June! Don't miss it!