The American boys' private school has had a bad press in recent times. John Knowles's A Separate Peace and Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War uncovered tensions and animosities of peculiar cruelty. Nat Hentoff's Alcott School [in This School Is Driving Me Crazy] is seen from a more comic standpoint, but the plot still turns upon bullying and extortion in the corridors and cloakrooms.

Sam Davidson is amusingly scatter-brained, highly articulate, given to thoughtless horsing around and basically a good kid; as is the way of many post-[Paul] Zindel heroes in American novels….

Nat Hentoff's dialogue is particularly lively and the scenes between [Sam and his friends] are thoroughly entertaining. The headmaster's problems about Sam (to the despair of his wife, he is unable to show his supportive love to his son) might seem implausible to the layman. In practice, headmastering regularly throws up circumstances where the public...