Malory Towers with a touch of Dahl

In most school novels, you have boarding schools set in castles, filled with helpful teachers, great friends and superb food. Children spend most of their time-solving mysteries or discovering fantastic beasts. Journalist-turned-author Payal Kapadia’s Horrid High series is set in a boarding school from hell, where students are abandoned by their parents and have to deal with crazy teachers and psychotic principals. In Bengaluru for the launch, Payal says, “The story is funny and turns the classic school story concept inside out. It’s not the children who are horrid, but the grown-ups. Children enjoy reading books with evil grown-ups.”