For this week’s Flamin’ Friday, we’re going to look at the main setting for each of the books: Grover Cleveland Boarding School.
During the rise of Harry Potter and the enchanting Hogwarts, imagine my joy at discovering that boarding schools were something that also occurred in the American Muggle world. That’s right, we have boarding schools right here in the good ol’ US of A. Most of them are located in New England or on the West Coast. After much state hopping, Grover Cleveland decided to land in the beautiful and historical city of Boston. I’m not very familiar with Boston, however, so whatever I can’t learn from Wikipedia I stay away from.
The campus is a nice place to live, in my opinion.Built in the 1960s, it has a chapel-turned-library, a spacious cafeteria/recreation room, and ivy-covered dormitories, in addition to a bunch of classrooms, a gym, and executive offices. In the year 2023 they will also build a new student center.
Into The Flames takes place in the year 2005, when the dean is a man called Mr. Schofield who looks like the principal of Chilton in Gilmore Girls but is a lot nicer. My favorite part of the school is, of course, the library. It’s the focal point in many of the books, the place where my main characters like to hide and conspire. Most of the other students don’t appreciate the library like my main characters do. Mrs. Munks is the librarian. She’s a little detached from reality and is very strict about the quiet rule, but overall she’s a nice lady. She probably cares about the library more than I do, and she hates to see it go unnoticed. The two gaurdians of the library are the lion statues by the front steps. Originally placed as guardians of Christianity, now they are benevolent rulers over all things literary.
Grover Cleveland is, overall, a place where magical things take place. It is a place of refuge for any beleagured hero or heroine, a place of understanding for the confused individual. True, the Cheeries and the Pongs and sometimes even the teachers give our characters conflict and moments of despair, but in the end, anyone attending Grover Cleveland will end up on top. The lions aren’t just guarding books, you know.
Do your books have a central location? Do certain places bring certain images, themes, or just comfort to your character?
It’s nice to see that not all boarding schools follow the stereotype up being to uptight.