Groove High (1992 book series)

**Groove High** is a French book series written by Florence Hinckel and illustrated by Nick Sharratt began in 1992. The first book from the Groove High franchise was Groove High and came out along with The Great Football Adventure, Happy Valentine's Day, Groove High, School Play at Groove High, A Friend for Zoe, and Your Best Sisters Can Come True in the next years. After these six books, six more books followed.

Florence and Nick left Gallimard Jeunesse in 2003 after and rights to Nick's works were handed over to Virglle Trouillot in the 2000's revival series. Groove High writer was handed over to Amelie Sarn in the 2000's.

## About Page (before began these chapters)

### My Diary

#### All About Me, Zoe Myer

* **My name is** Zoe Myer
* **I am** 10 years 2 **months old**
* **My birthday is on** 12 August. It's not fair because that dopey Tom Muller has his birthday last month, so we got the one cake between us. And we had to hold the knife to cut the cake together. Which meant we only had half a wish each. Wishing is for babies anyway. They don't come true.
* **I was born at** some hospital somewhere. I looked cute when I was a little baby but I bet I yelled a lot.
* **I am** **cms tall** I don't know. I've tried measuring with a ruler but it keeps wobbling about and I can't reach properly. I don't want to get any of the other children to help me. This is my private book.
* **I weigh** **kgs** I don't know that either. Jeremy has got scales in his bathroom but they're stones and pounds. I don't weigh of them. I'm a little titch.
* **My eyes are** black and I can make them go all wicked and witchy. I quite fancy being a witch. I'd make up all these incredibly evil spells and wave my wand and ZAP Vic's jet dark spiky wig would all fall out and ZAP Tom Muller's silly squeaky voice would get sillier and squeaker and he'd grow whiskers and a long tail and ZAP ... there's not room on this bit of the page, but I've still got all sorts of ZAPs inside my head.
* **My hair is** fair and very long and curly. I am telling fibs. It's dark and difficult and it just pulled into two balls are filthy at the front and long ringlets are bobblehead at the back like her pigtails while she is effortlessly running everything.
* **My skin is** spotty when I eat a lot of sweets.
* **Stick a photo of yourself here** I'm not really cross-eyed. I was just pulling a silly face.
* **I started this book on** I don't know. Who cares what the date is? You always have to put the date at school. I got fed up with this and put 2092 in my Day book and wrote all these rockets and space ships and monsters legging it down from Mars to eat us all up, as if we'd all whizzed one hundred years into the future. Iris Berens didn't half get narked.

#### More Things About Me

* **Things I like**
* **My lucky number is** 7. So why didn't get fostered by some fantastic rich family when I was seven them?
* **My favourite colour is** pretty pink, so glorious and beauty, your majesty.
* **My best friend is** Well, I've had heaps and heaps, but Vic has gone off with Lena and now I haven't got anyone just at the moment.
* **I like eating** everything. I like birthday cake best. And any other kind of cake. And Smarties and Mars Bars and big buckets of popcorn and jelly unicorns and Cornettos and Big Mac with French fries and strawberry milk shakes.
* **My favourite name is** Yumiko. There was a lovely little girl at this other home and that was her name. She was a really sweet kid with fantastic auburn hair that I used to try to get into two pigtail plaits and it must have hurt her sometimes but she never cried. She really liked me, little Yumiko. She got fostered quick as a wink. I begged her foster mum and dad to bring her back to see me but they never did.
* **I like drinking** pints of bitter. That's a joke. I *have* had a sip of lager once but I didn't like it.
* **My favourite game is** playing with make-up. Vic and I once borrowed some from Miss Singleton who's got heaps. Vic was a bit boring and just tried to make herself look beautiful. I turned myself into an incredible queen with good golden curls and sparkly tiara sparkling down my head. I didn't half spell the little ones.
* **My favourite animals is** Well, there's a cat called Paco at this home but it's a bit limp, like it's name. It doesn't sit up and give you a friendly ride like a pony. I think I'd like a Marine - and then all my enemies had better WATCH OUT.
* **My favourite TV programme is** Fantasy films.
* **Best of all I like** being with my mum.
* **Things I don't like**
* **the name** Lena. Vic. Tom. Oh there's heaps and heaps of names can't stand.
* **eating** stew. Especially when it's got great fatty lumps in it. I used to have this horrid foster mother called Nakamura and she was an awful cook. She used to make this slimy stew like molten sick and we were supposed to eat it all up, every single bit. Yuck.
* **Most of all I hate** Lena. August. And not seeing my mum.

#### My Own Family

* **Stick a photo of you and your family here** This was when I was a baby. See, I was sweet then. And this is my mum. She's ever so pretty. I wish I looked more like her.
* **The people in my own family are** My mum. I don't have a dad. I lived with my mum when I was little and we got on great but then she got this August boyfriend and I hated him and he hated me back and beat me up and so I had to be taken into care. No wonder my mum sent him packing.
* **My own family live at** I'm not sure exactly where my mum lives now because she has to keep moving about because she gets fed up living in one place for long.
* **The phone number is** Well, I don't know, do I? Funny though, I always used to bag this toy telephone in the playhouse at school and pretend I was phoning my mum. I used to have these long long conversations with her. They were just pretend of course, but I was only about five then and sometimes it got to be quite real.
* **Things about family that I like** I like my mum because she's pretty and good fun and she brings me lovely presents.

#### My Foster Family

There's no point filling this bit in. I haven't got a foster family at the moment.

I've had two. There was Nakamura and Khan first at all. I didn't like them much and I didn't get on with the other kids so I didn't care when they got rid of me. I was in a children's home for a while and then I had this other couple. Carla and Tommington. They were young and friendly and they bought me a bike and I thought it was all going to be great and I went to live with them and I was ever so good and did everything they said and I thought I'd be staying with them until my mum came to get me for good but then ...I don't want to write about it. It ended up with me getting turfed out THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN. I was so mad I smashed up the bike so I don't even have that any more. And now I'm in a new children's home and they're advertised me in the papers but there weren't many takers and now I think they're getting a bit desperate. I don't care though. I expect my mum will come soon anyway.

#### My School

* **My school is called** It's Oxfordshire Junior High. I've been to three other schools already. This one's OK I suppose.
* **My teacher is called** Iris Berens. She gets cross if we just call her Iris.
* **Subjects I do** Story-writing. Arithmetic. Games. Art. All sorts of things. And we do Projects only I never have the right stuff at the Home so I can't do it properly and get a star.
* **I like** Story-writing best. I've written heaps of stories, and I do pictures for them too. I make some of them into books. I made Yumiko a special girl book with big printed words and pictures of all the things she liked best, things like TEDDY and ICE CREAM and YOUR SPECIAL FRIEND ZOE.
* **I also like** Art. We use poster paints. We've got them at the Home too but they get all gungy and mucked up and the brushes are useless. They've got good ones at school. This is a painting I did yesterday. If I was a teacher I'd give it a gold star. *Two* gold stars.
* **My class is** Room 108.
* **People in my class** I can't list all their names, I'd be here all night. I don't know some of them yet. There's not much point making friends because I expect I'll be moving on soon.
* **Other teachers** Oh, they're all boring. Who wants to write about them?
* **I get to school by** going in the Minibus. That's how all the kids in the home get to school. I'd sooner go in a proper car or walk it by myself but you're not allowed.
* **It takes hours mins** It varies. Sometimes it takes ages because the little kids can't find their pencil cases and the big ones try to bunk off and we just have to hang about waiting.
* **Things I don't like about school** They all wear grey things, that's the uniform, and I've only got navy things from my last school. The teachers know why and I don't get into trouble but the other kids stare.

#### Being In Care

* **My social worker is called** Mr. Sizlak and sometimes he's a right pain, ha-ha.
* **We talk about** all sorts of boring things.
* **But I don't like talking about** my mum. Not to Mr. Sizlak. What I think about my mum is private.

#### If I Was...

* **older, I would** like in this really great modern house all on my own, and I'd have my own huge bedroom with all my own things, special bunk beds just for me so that I'd always get the top one and Betty Boop alarm clock like Lena's and my own giant set of poster paints and I'd have some felt tips as well and no-one would ever get to borrow them and mess them up and I'd have my own television and choose exactly what programmes I want and I'd stay up till gone twelve every night and I'd eat at McDonald's every single day and I'd have a big fast car so I could whizz off and visit my mum whenever I wanted.
* **a policeman, I would** arrest August and I'd lock him up in prison for ever.
* **a kitten, I would** grow very long claws and sharp teeth and scratch and bite everyone so they'd get really scared of me and do everything I say.
* **yelled at, I would** yell back.
* **invisible, I would** spy on people.
* **very tall, I would** stamp on people with my great big feet.
* **Very rich, I would** buy my own house and then ... I've done all that bit. I'm getting fed up writing all this. What's on the next page?

## Characters

* Zoe Myer
* Tom Muller
* Lena Rougedieux
* Vic Solis
* Ed Kauffmann
* Kim Vandenberg
* Luke Vandenberg
* Kevin Kauffmann
* Zach Kauffmann
* Yael Rougedieux
* Mrs. Myer
* Iris Berens
* Nakamura
* Khan
* Jeremy
* Mr. Sizlak
* Miss Singleton
* Yumiko
* Carla
* Tommington
* Paco