Lois Duncan

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Down a Dark Hall

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In the following review, Sarah Law Kennerly argues that Lois Duncan's Down a Dark Hall transforms from a juvenile Gothic romance into a disturbing fantasy, centered on the theme of a sensitive human mind being invaded by an alien intelligence.

When 14-year-old Kit arrives at Blackwood, a new and exclusive school for girls run by Madame Duret, she is frightened by an unsettling atmosphere of evil…. The climax of terror [in Down a Dark Hall] comes when Kit discovers what happened to the pupils Madame had exploited in previous schools. What first appears to be a juvenile Gothic romance turns into a disturbing fantasy about the invasion of a sensitive human mind by an alien intelligence.

Sarah Law Kennerly, in her review of "Down a Dark Hall," in School Library Journal, an appendix to Library Journal (reprinted from the December, 1974 issue of School Library Journal, published by R. R. Bowker Co./A Xerox Corporation; copyright © 1974), Vol. 21, No. 4, December, 1974, p. 50.

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