Joe Warden isn't happy. He has rich, uncaring parents and he's virtually a prisoner in the huge family mansion, Thattlebee Hall. But his real problem is his granny. Not only is she physically repulsive and unbelievably mean, she seems to have some secret plan and that plan involves him! Can he thwart her evil scheme before he's turned into neoplasmic slime?

Only child Jordan “Joe” Morgan Warden suffers a lonely existence in the cavernous Thattlebee Hall in North London, neglected by his tycoon father and his lunching and lessoning (piano, tennis and trapeze) mother, and comforted only by the Hall’s quirky servants: Mr. Lampy, the senile gardener and Mrs. Jinks, exotic dancer cum nanny. Worst of all, Joe is tortured by his 94 year-old Granny, with diabolical foods, babyish presents and compulsory leather-cheeked kisses. Of course, his Granny is just old, and really means well. Or does she?
This humorous and satirical tale goes on to describe Joe’s realization that Granny is in fact an extremely vengeful creature, out to humiliate him at every turn. This realization comes upon him suddenly, “It was like one of those optical illusions you sometimes find in cereal boxes. You look at a picture one way, but then you suddenly notice something different and you can never see it again the same way.” He watches in horror as Granny methodically eliminates both Mr. Lampy and his beloved Mrs. Jinks, robbing Joe of his only meaningful human relationships. While the sudden deaths of the book’s only sympathetic characters (one devoured by police dogs and the other incinerated in a nitroglycerine-sparked bonfire) is a disturbing development for juvenile fiction, the deaths are surprisingly clean. After falling upon Mrs. Jinks, the dogs hang their heads in disgrace, looking, “a lot fatter than they had been when they arrived.” “Like Mrs. Jinks before him, nothing was found of Mr. Lampy—which was hardly surprising. He had blown a crater fifteen feet deep in the earth.”
What protects the reader from feeling the full impact of these deaths is the light and farcical tone of the book. It is action-packed and humorous, and does not seek to develop its characters into three-dimensional human beings. Instead they are portrayed as caricatures, designed more to inhabit a children’s animated film than a thought-provoking novel. The vivid descriptions of the characters draw brilliant cartoons as each is introduced. Mr. Warden (note the ironic name) takes pride in the fact that, “My suits are tailor-made, my private yacht is sailor made, and I drink champagne like lemonade.” Granny “had a large mouth framed by some of the yellowest teeth in the world. These teeth were stumpy and irregular, slanting at odd angels and actually wobbled in her gums when she laughed.”
Having dispensed with any possible opposition by Lampy or Jinks, Granny dispatches Joe’s oblivious parents to the islands on holiday while she drags the reluctant and terrified Joe to a granny conference in Devonshire. Grannies from far and wide converge on the Stilton International Hotel for the Golden Granny Awards for things like: taking the longest time getting on a bus, being the most difficult shopper, and having the most absurd reason for telephoning the police. While spying on the awards ceremony, Joe is ensnared in a net and immobilized in a straightjacket knitted out of pink wool. 106 year-old Elsie Bucket, oldest among the grannies, then reveals their ultimate revenge: The Grannymatic Enzyme Extractor. Apparently Joe will be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice by relinquishing his youthful enzymes for the final ingredients in Granny Bucket’s elixir of youth. The comical capers that follow ultimately wrap up a little too neatly in an epilogue in which Joe and family live happily ever after.
The elements of this book that will be most appealing to the young reader, aged 8-12, are its sharp, satirical humor, its swift pace, and the repeated foreboding. The story commences with a prologue that serves as the penultimate chapter, to be inserted immediately before the epilogue. In this chapter Joe and his parents race to Heathrow during an epic thunderstorm, crash their Mercedes in the parking garage, and demand tickets to “America, Africa, Australia, Anywhere!” They settle into their first class seats with great relief, as “The events that had begun nine months before were finally over.” Cue chapter one.
Another element that will appeal to readers aged 12 and under is the inevitable frustration of being a child without control over your own life. Joe finds that he “wanted to be hungry, to feel cold, to have adventures and to know danger, and he was angry because he knew that so long as he was a child, none of this would be his.” What might be lost on all but the most sophisticated of readers is that Granny is suffering from a parallel loss of independence at the opposite end of the age spectrum. This point is made clear when Granny is greeted by the syrupy smile of a train station guard who was, “the kind of man who believes that all old people are like children, that they don’t understand anything except simple words spoken loudly.”
What this tale lacks is genuine character development and opportunities for emotional engagement with the reader. It is a fast, fun read and will likely be popular among tweens longing for practice with newly discovered senses of satire and irony. American readers may, however, be perplexed by some of the distinctly British sayings, “I’m meeting Jane for elevenses and as she’s always late it’s bound to be twelveses. The poor dear is all at sixes and sevens! Maybe I’ll buy her some After Eights.”
This book was originally published in 1994, but Anthony Horowitz’s savvy publisher rereleased it in 2009 to capitalize on the commercial success of his more recent Alex Rider series. Mr. Horowitz’s screen-writing background is evident in this story, which sometimes reads more like a script than a novel. Nonetheless, I recommend carrying it on the shelves of upper elementary, middle school and public libraries for those who have read through all of Alex Rider and are clamoring for more Horowitz (mostly boys). Promote it to boys who are discovering a love for satire, and to reluctant readers who want to laugh but not think too hard, or read too many pages. Give it to those who have outgrown Lemony Snicket but still yearn for that dark, British humor. But please, leave it off the syllabus for English or for summer reading—this is a purely recreational read. ( )

Joe Warden suffers from very rich parents. He longs to escape, perhaps to join the Foreign Legion. But these are not his worst problems—he also has to deal with Granny. She has no dress sense, no table manners, is partially deaf, and deliberately gives Joe babyish toys for Christmas. Almost worst of all, she expects him to kiss her. But then there is also the strange Granny club she belongs to, and their ongoing interest in Joe’s enzymes…

This book is hilarious. Even those children who adore their grandmothers will be able to recognise in their own beloved Nanna or Grandma at least a few of the many, many unpleasant aspects character of Granny. Occasionally a character in the book attempts to persuade Joe that “she loves you. She’s your granny!” but, as the story progresses, more and more characters accept what Joe has always known: she is not just “difficult”; she is in fact, “rather horrible”.

The book also includes many ‘groaners’: puns and gags and one-liners that just seem to be begging for a drum-and-cymbal “d-doum chhh” to cue the canned laughter… but Mr. Horowitz somehow manages to still make the writing appear classy in spite of this. Here’s an example from the book, when Mr & Mrs Warden are looking for a babysitter for Joe:
Mrs: “We could ask Mabel Butterworth. She’s an angel.”
Mr: “You’re absolutely right. She died two years ago.” (d-doum chhh)
And one further example, from the Granny convention:
Gladys: “Evelyn! I haven’t seen you since… 1942!”
Evelyn: “Fifty-two years ago, Gladys. You haven’t changed…”
Gladys: “Haven’t I, Evelyn dear?”
Evelyn: “No! You’re still wearing the same dress.” (d-doum chhh)

Another awe-inspiring aspect of the story is the author’s seemingly boundless imagination when it comes to the revolting cuisine that Granny serves to Joe (“She’s done it on purpose. She’s chosen all the things I can’t stand and she’s put them here because she knows you’ll make me eat them. She’s torturing me!”) Somehow it is made worse by the fact that they are all real foods, just presented in horrible condition, or in horrible combinations, or, in one case, no combination at all: “…by far the worst item on the table was Granny’s cream cheese special…. Granny’s cream cheese special consisted of just one thing: cream cheese. That was all it was: a big bowl of cream cheese…”

In a more serious vein, this book does explore the relationships in a child’s life, and their common need to connect with somebody. Joe has no friends, his parents “(have) no wish to be left alone with Joe” and his grandmother has in mind to use Joe as the “most difficult component” in a complicated and undoubtedly sinister physics experiment one of her Granny acquaintances is planning. The author of this book, in an address to a school group, once said “It’s impossible to have fun or have adventures when your parents are around” and he seems to be writing this book against adult relatives altogether: “The fact of the matter is that the worst thing about parents is often their parents. That’s certainly where they get their most rotten ideas.”

Anyway, Granny is a fantastic, jovial, silly-in-a-good-way book, to be enjoyed by all children, grandmothers, and parents who want to look on the lighter side of life. It would also be a fantastic choice for a teacher to read aloud to a class.