Home School by Charles Webb

Writing a sequel to one of modern literature's classics is always a dangerous move – especially 44 years after the original has been published.

Home School is Charles Webb's follow-up to his best-known novel, The Graduate . Published in 1963, this hilarious tale about the ill-fated Benjamin's encounter with meddlesome Mrs Robinson has been translated into a film and musical, and still speaks to readers worldwide.

Beginning some 15 years later, Mr Webb picks up the original characters and their lives without much difficulty at all. Benjamin is still as idealistic and stubborn as ever, and is married to Mrs Robinson's daughter, Elaine with two children whom the pair teach from home.

Disaster strikes when the local high school demands that the boys be returned and educated properly. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the only way around the problem is to enlist the help of none other than Mrs Robinson herself, who is only too happy to be involved.

What follows is a comical account of one family's attempt to make peace with the mother-in-law from hell. It wouldn't be fair to give away all the jokes and gags here; but, without spoiling the story, the absolute highlight is when Mrs Robinson manages to send up the school principal and, finally, her last show down with Benjamin.

Elaine, who was pretty quiet in The Graduate , gets a much bigger part this time round. The only criticism is that her and Benjamin's sons, Matt and Jason, are not particularly developed and seem written in only as a means of bringing Mrs Robinson back into the story. But this is not a tale about young children; it is a witty observation of the ways in which parents can still wreak havoc even when their children are adults.

Mr Webb's delay in writing this sequel means that it probably will not reach the same popularity or success as The Graduate , but fans can rest assured that neither the characters nor the original have been in anyway ruined by him doing so.