Rating: 
Summary: Rich Symbolism
Review: "The Bad Seed" is packed with symbols. Rhoda is a murderous child who will stop at nothing to get what she desires.Her braids were looped back like "hangman nooses." Hangman nooses are the ropes over which a hanged person dies. The hangma itself is the pillory upon which people were hanged. "Penmark" is a nod to the mark of the pen; the "penmanship improvement medal" is yet another nod to the author's fascination with handwriting. Various references are made to character and penmanship. Rhoda is described as having very neat, precise handwriting. The vegetation, e.g. the types of trees, plants and flowers mentioned cause one to believe that the Baltimore Penmarks have been relocated to a southern locale. The movie adaptation of this story (the passable 1956 original and the dreadful 1985 remake) portray Leroy as Caucasian. Yet, in the book, upon reading his dialect and his grumblings about his "sharecropper boyhood," makes one wonder if Leroy is black. The names "Leroy" and "Thelma," his wife have traditionally, but not exclusively been used by black families; their speech patterns also create the impression that possibly they are black. 1950s prejudice often prevailed, so black characters more often than not were peripheral characters at best, stereotypes or villians at worst. Leroy fell into the latter category. Lastly, Leroy's neighborhood on "General Jackson Street." It is described as a decaying, crumbling neighborhood where "nobody had nothing nice," and Leroy himself didn't have a car, not even something you "couldn't give to the junkman." General Jackson Street sounds like it could be a dividing line among the races in this genteel southern town; it could just simply be a less than satisfactory neighborhood where these characters reside. Leroy has to walk two miles to work at the apartment building where Rhoda lives. "Rich people's children," his wife Thelma calls them. She tells Leroy not to "mess with" these children; she tells him he'll be dragged down to the station house where the police will "kick his teeth in." Although Leroy is never racially identified in the book, the overall description of his character does raise the question of whether or not he was black. Females, minorities, psychiatry, homosexuality, pedophilia = all of these are powerful themes that are woven into the fabric of this story. Leroy is a pedophile (the author, on the other hand was a pedophobe), Mrs. Breedlove and the Fern Sisters are described in hostile terms; Bessie Denker, Rhoda's maternal grandmother as well as Rhoda herself are the darkest characters in this line up. Hortense Daigle, the mother of Rhoda's slain classmate is portrayed in an unflattering light. Her behavior is quite understandable given the fact that her only child was killed, but I didn't like the way the author described her. She was one of the few sympathetic characters. Mrs. Breedlove's brother is described as being gay; the Fern Sisters as repressed Victorian women who repressed their sexuality by remaining single and running that school. Freudian themes emerge here -- the sisters repressed sexuality, Emory's repressed homosexuality, Leroy's obsession with Rhoda and Mrs. Breedlove's antics. A bawdy, outspoken woman, Mrs. Breedlove is actually quite funny. This book is quite a read!
Rating: 
Summary: I want to be Rhoda!
Review: Let's face it, little girls have a dark side, too, and this is one of the few books that ever acknowledge it. Granted, Rhoda's darkness has the ability to blot out the sun, but it was still fun in a perverse sort of way to read about her being fawned over by oblivious adults after she just set a guy on fire. This book is tremendously cathartic for women who are tired of being patronized, chucked under the chin, and called "sweetheart". My dream triple feature: The Bad Seed, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and Fatal Attraction. You go, girls!
Rating:
Summary: an axe grinds delightfully
Review: A retired English professor friend of mine had taught this for years in a course on the child in literature (moving, I believe, in a basically historical pattern from depictions of innocence to this book's monstrous anomaly as a way of raising the issue of childhood innocence itself), and this friend admired the book. Then my daughter, a lover of the film version, read it and told me how good it is. So I promised to read her copy this summer; once again her evaluation of a book is right: while the film is good in creating a creepy effect, this book's establishment of uneasiness is more intense. It seems to me to be about extremes of aberrant psychology: Freud and the rest cannot touch the mutation, it seems to say, and there are those psychologically as well are there are physically. It is a chilling story, but the approach to psychoanalysis is sometimes too obvious, as with the woman, Mrs. Breedlove, who is constantly chattering "associatively" and then analyzing herself because she once was a patient of Dr. Freud himself (who wisely deflected her to the care of one of his former students). She's garrulous and loopy, but she's got the vocabulary right! To me this seems to say that much of what passes for psychoanalytic knowledge is educated gossip. (March had an axe to grind becausein the 1950's, when he wrote, psychiatrists called his homosexuality an aberration. It seems natural in retrospect that he would want to debunk their authority.) So far as plot goes, it is really gripping, as the little girl is very believable in her strangeness, a sweet little monster who just is the way she is and sees absolutely nothing wrong with any means to get what she wants, what one now calls a "sociopath." She reminds me of Kate Trask from Steinbeck's East of Eden. While March is either debunking or vigorously questioning the social science of psychiatry, he is also creating very believable and complex personalities in the plot. It's not a great book, but it is certainly worth the read, making it easy to see why its title has entered the language as a descriptive phrase.
Rating:
Summary: Social Soirees and Sociopathic children
Review: Although first written in 1954, March's The Bad Seed has lost none of its vibrancy through the passage of time, and holds itself in the lead of creeping, stealthy horror that will curl your toes and straighten your hair.
Christine Penmark is a beautiful young wife, recently moved with her husband Kenneth and daughter Rhoda to a languid town, finding appropriate lodging, and enrolling their precocious little girl into the Fern Grammar School. With her husband away all summer on business, Christine's social life centers around Rhoda, her effervescent neighbor Mrs. Monica Breedlove, Monica's brother Emory, and the shifty groundskeeper Leroy Jessup.
Christine is a gentle and well-bred lady, and often looks upon her daughter's fastidious dress and immaculate room and wonders how she deserved such a beautiful, normal child. On the morning of the Fern Grammar School annual picnic, Rhoda is already up and dressed, her hair neatly braided, and eager to go. Christine and Mrs. Breedlove drop Rhoda off with the three aging Fern sisters, Miss Octavia, Miss Burgess, and Miss Claudia, who take the children to their old home at Pelican Bay.
When a little boy mysteriously drowns at the picnic, the same little boy who won the penmanship medal that Rhoda had wanted so badly, Christine's world begins to fall apart with doubts. Memories flood back to her of Rhoda's strange friendship with an old woman back in Baltimore who had promised Rhoda her opal necklace when she died, the same necklace that hangs in Rhoda's room. Memories of the school Rhoda was expelled from for telling lies and being "a cold, self-sufficient child who plays by her own rules".
Christine turns to Emory's friend Reginald Tasker, who is writing a novel about females who have committed atrocious murders, and in his research she finds something terribly familiar. In the meantime, the Fern Sisters have informed Christine that Rhoda will not be welcomed back next year to the Fern Grammar School, stating that "they can do nothing for her in their environment."
Christine begins to wonder, when she looks upon her daughter, whether she is gazing at the angel or the beast. As the summer unfolds, Christine digs deeper into Reginald's research, fearful of what she will find and terrified not to learn more of her and Rhoda's past, until Rhoda takes a bold step and openly shows her mother where the real truth lies.
The well-bred gentility of the characters, their languid and imperturbable lifestyles, is what gives The Bad Seed such creepiness. Looking for a black spot in a picture filled with pretty flowers is harder than looking for one in a dreary landscape, but when you find it, it seems to grow until it mars the entire painting.
That is the feeling I got reading The Bad Seed, the creeping sensation of low terror that shudders like a soft vibration down your spine, leaving you uneasy and often short of breath. The Bad Seed is a must-read for any horror fan, simply because the soft touch of death will kill as certainly as the bludgeon. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Bad Seeeeeed
Review: Deliciously engaging! Rhoda is such a full bodied character, and my heart bleeds for her poor mother, Christine. What a wicked little girl! A recommending mother/daughter read...Guaranteed laughs and chills.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: Despite a few ham-handed attempts to throw psychological jargon into his narrative, William March delivered a solid piece of literature when "The Bad Seed" was published. In young Rhoda Penmark, he gave us one of the most accurately yet subtly drawn portrayals of simple, single-minded, self-interested evil that one could imagine. And in developing the novel's other characters, he did equally fine work. The story remains engaging even to a reader who comes to it almost 50 years after its initial publication. The focus is never fully on Rhoda and this is what makes the novel work so well. By showing us the actions and reactions of her mother, Christine and the other people around Rhoda, we see a more complete, realistic view of her world. This broadening of the novel's perspective creates a more humane environment and puts Rhoda's evil deeds in context. This is a much greater work of literature than many of today's popular murder stories. There are no faceless victims in "The Bad Seed" and the effects of evil are not taken lightly. In an interesting way, the ending is much like that of a classical tragedy -- but with a modern twist. I'll say no more about that. Just know that I recommend this book highly!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: Despite a few ham-handed attempts to throw psychological jargon into his narrative, William March delivered a solid piece of literature when "The Bad Seed" was published. In young Rhoda Penmark, he gave us one of the most accurately yet subtly drawn portrayals of simple, single-minded, self-interested evil that one could imagine. And in developing the novel's other characters, he did equally fine work. The story remains engaging even to a reader who comes to it almost 50 years after its initial publication. The focus is never fully on Rhoda and this is what makes the novel work so well. By showing us the actions and reactions of her mother, Christine and the other people around Rhoda, we see a more complete, realistic view of her world. This broadening of the novel's perspective creates a more humane environment and puts Rhoda's evil deeds in context. This is a much greater work of literature than many of today's popular murder stories. There are no faceless victims in "The Bad Seed" and the effects of evil are not taken lightly. In an interesting way, the ending is much like that of a classical tragedy -- but with a modern twist. I'll say no more about that. Just know that I recommend this book highly!
Rating:
Summary: The Bad Seed draws you in with the horror of Rhoda Penmark
Review: From the twisted mind of a Southern outcast comes his greatest blood-chilling novel, The Bad Seed, set in a quiet southern home in the 1950s. As you get further and deeper into the terror of Christine Penmark, who witnesses her child Rhoda kill in cold blood and smile a shallow smile, you will begin to feel as if you know her somehow...as if you are Christine...as if the bad seed has somehow touched you...
Rating: 
Summary: Amateurish prose ruins an interesting idea
Review: I picked this book up with my interest piqued by the eerie idea of a perfect, and perfectly evil, little girl. By the end I felt only relief that it was finally over, and a faint irritation that I'd wasted my time. William March writes like a ninth-grader: he has big ideas, but little to no idea how to craft a good telling. He goes to some trouble to set up an elaborate scene, but what is played out against that backdrop is cliche and leaves little to the imagination. The narrative sports frequent detailed tangents that turn out to be completely irrelevant as well as uninteresting. The story quickly becomes predictable and loses its spooky edge: the sameness of Rhoda's exploits wears away any interest one may have had in her psychology at the beginning. The eventual denouement is trite and hardly a surprise. I like a good horror story as much as anyone, but this book is a cul-de-sac. Unless it's your first horror novel, I'd suggest looking elsewhere for well-crafted and interesting suspense.
Rating:
Summary: "The Bad Seed" is an incredible story of genetic horror!!
Review: I would like all horror-readers to know that this is an awesome story, with a devilishly twisted , and disgusting plot. Rhoda, a sweet little blonde girl, loves the fact that adults hang on her every innocent word or expression. It really helps in convincing them that a cute third grader would never, ever commit a murder just for a something as silly as a penmanship award. When, in fact, she would. Her kind mother, loves her, but is scared when she finds out that her only daughter is a serial killer. First, Rhoda violently drags out the sickening and unecessary death (that she, of course, causes) of a classmate. When the house gardener suspects Rhoda did this, based on the fact that she came home on the day of the boy's "accidental and unexplained" death with not a tear of pain or fear to shed. She shows no feeling whatsoever, and is in such a good mood that she decides to rollerskate after having a hearty after-school snack. Our sweet Rhoda hates the gardener for this, and decides it is best to burn him down with the rest of the rotting basement. She does not succeed thanks to her mother (who had known Rhoda killed the young boy, when she found the medal for the writing award in Rhoda's "treasure box", while looking for a certain ring to have cleaned), who rescues the poor man from the basement. I'll leave the ending for you to read!! Anyway, this is a spectacular story that I would reccomend to anyone and everyone! Enjoy your reading!!
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