Thank You, Diana Wynne Jones

Last spring, British fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones passed away from cancer. I felt a huge, personal sense of loss. After all, I've loved her books for as long as I can remember. She's in my trio of best children's fantasy writers, along with Megan Whalen Turner (whom she helped to publish a first book) and another Brit, Terry Pratchett.

What makes DWJ's books so great?

I'll begin with the details. I've noticed a lot of the best fantasy books and stories have shockingly creative details. Just think about it: glass slippers, a giant beanstalk, a cat in boots, an aerial school sport played on broomsticks, a young witch who uses her little brother as bait and hits a river monster with a frying pan.

Now, consider Diana Wynne Jones's inventiveness: a dirty sneakers spell, a scrawny young goddess who longs to go to a girls' boarding school, a nine-lived enchanter supervising magic through the dimensions like a chief of police, a song that brings down a mountain, a goon at the kitchen table, a young woman who is cursed with old age, a spell that's a conga line...

And Jones's parallel worlds always include big doses of the ordinary, making the dragon's blood matter all the more.

Convolution. (I wanted to say convolutedness, perhaps because it sounds more twisty!) DWJ's books are unpredictable, with a subtle vein of humor running through most of them. One of the biggest compliments of my life was when an editor compared the ending of my manuscript to Diana Wynne Jones's work because I had what he called a cast of thousands plus a complicated ending.

There are certain scenes in Diana Wynne Jones's books—you know, the kind that make you smile and even laugh a little because you know they're coming up in a few pages. One of them is the conga line mentioned above, actually from one of Jones's books for grown-ups, A Sudden Wild Magic.

Of course, the reason you know they're coming up is because you're rereading. Some books can only be read once. But DWJ's books are rereadable in a big way.

One of the best things about Diana Wynne Jones's writing is her way with characters. For example, her kid characters aren't heroic, particularly. They're grubby and surprised and sometimes unkind, though they do have their good points. I am very fond of Christopher Chant and Millie, not to mention Howard and Sophie and obviously Howl, just for starters. Plus the Goon. And a cat named Throgmorten! The villains are dimensional, too. Anyone who has ever had a horrible older sister will nevertheless gasp at Gwendolyn Chant's complete and utter ruthlessness, as well as her ongoing efforts to upset Chrestomanci with her over-the-top spells.

DWJ's books are also characterized by a kind of practical, nearly hardnosed, sort of whimsy.

I have my favorites, as you can tell. Here are a handful of them:


Cart and Cwidder

Like the other books in this unconnected set, the Dalemark Quartet, Cart and Cwidder takes place in a vaguely medieval setting. You'll find that the author's way with character extends to an understanding of families and how they function, or rather how they straggle along. Clennen is a larger-than-life personality on a small stage, a musician and performer traveling around Dalemark with his children. But when they pick up a new passenger, Moril learns that his father is not what he seems, and Moril will have to be braver and more musical than he ever imagined. I say this, sounding epic, but the fact is that these kids squabble along even as they try to fulfill their father's mission and beat the bad guys. They don't always know what to do, and yet they plug along, alternately messing up and getting it right. Like I said, real.

Random excerpt:

While Lenina was cooking supper, Clennen fetched the big cwidder down, polished it, tuned it carefully, and beckoned Moril. Moril came reluctantly. He was rather in awe of the big cwidder. Its shining round belly was even more imposing than Clennen's. The inlaid patterns on the front and arm, made of pearl and ivory and various colored woods, puzzled him by their strangeness. And its voice when you played it was so surprisingly sweet and quite unlike that of the other cwidders. Clennen took such care of it that Moril still sometimes thought—as he had when he was little—that this cwidder was an extra, special part of Clennen, more important than his father's arm or leg—something on the lines of a wooden soul.

How's that for writing?? Keep in mind that that's her early stuff. DWJ was just getting started!


Howl's Moving Castle

A lot of people know about this book, or at least the 2004 film of the story made by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. In a world where fairy tale rules dictate that the younger daughters will have all the luck, Sophie doesn't see herself having much of a future—and that's even before the Witch of the Waste turns her into a little old lady. Freed from her shyness by dint of old age, Sophie sets out on an adventure. She catches up with the terrible wizard Howl's moving castle and basically forces herself in, making friends with a strange fiery creature named Calcifer. Of course, this is a DWJ books, so there are about 50 subplots. Yet she makes them all work!

Random excerpt:

[When Sophie tries to tidy up Howl's room and then the yard.] "Not here either," he said. "You are a terror, aren't you? Leave this yard alone. I know just where everything is in it, and I won't be able to find the things I need for my transport spells if you tidy them up."

So there was probably a bundle of souls or a box of chewed hearts somewhere out here, Sophie thought. She felt really thwarted. "Tidying up is what I'm here for!" she shouted at Howl.

"Then you must think of a new meaning for your life," Howl said... "Now trot along indoors, you overactive old thing, and find something else to play with before I get angry. I hate getting angry."

Sophie folded her skinny arms. She did not like being glared at by eyes like glass marbles. "Of course you hate getting angry!" she retorted. "You don't like anything unpleasant, do you? You're a slitherer-outer, that's what you are! You slither away from anything you don't like!"

Howl gave a forced sort of smile. "Well now," he said. "Now we both know each other's faults."

Archer's Goon

A boy named Howard comes home to find the Goon sitting at the kitchen table, scaring baby sitter Fifi and not exactly scaring Howard's holy terror of a little sister, Awful. The Goon wants something, but what? I can sincerely predict that you'll never guess where this is going, but it has something to do with the two thousand words Howard's father must turn in to a man named Mountjoy every three months. When the pages get waylaid, the electricity is turned off. And that's just the beginning of the troubles that come to Howard's family. Let's just say things escalate—it's rotten and hilarious all at the same time. Howard discovers that a group of unpleasant siblings are running the city, a crime family with magical powers. I'll stop there, but this is another odd, convoluted tale. I love it! Especially the Goon.

Not-So-Random Excerpt (because it's the prologue):

1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.
2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch.
3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight.
5. Music does not always soothe the troubled breast.
6. An Englishman's home is his castle.
7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
8. One black eye deserves another.
9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm.
10. It pays to increase your word power.

Dogsbody

To my dismay, when I sat down to write this post, I realized I had loaned Dogsbody to my associate editor. Why, oh why? Well, I figure it speaks volumes that when I realized she was a fantasy reader and writer who had missed out on a lot of the best stuff, this was one of half a dozen books I loaned her, as well as Howl's Moving Castle (she had seen the movie). Dogsbody has a fairly gritty subplot about a little girl who is living with unloving relatives and a parallel subplot about a puppy she rescues from the river. Only, this being DWJ, the puppy is something more, a lost somebody on the run from enemies, but stuck in a puppy mind. He has trouble protecting Kathleen, let alone himself. A strange and tender story with an appearance by the horned god in the forest.

No excerpt. Sorry!


The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life

DWJ's best invention is arguably Chrestomanci, which sounds like a name but is actually a title. The most powerful enchanter in the series of known worlds is obligated to be trained to police magic in those worlds. In The Lives of Christopher Chant, the son of rather awful feuding parents is often at loose ends. Is it any wonder he responds when his too-bland governess and his mother's friend involve him in a scheme to take advantage of the fact that he travels to the Anywheres in his dreams? One of the two funniest things about this book is the gruesomely amusing way Christopher keeps getting killed in his dreams (in answer to the old question, if you die in your dreams, do you die in real life?). The other is a friend Christopher makes in one of the worlds, the young Goddess of Asheth. Her idea of bliss is to read books about girls at boarding schools, e.g., Head Girl Millie. Then the plot thickens. And swerves. And does a loop-de-loop. I especially like the creativity of the bootboy, the cook, the gardeners, and some maids who are called upon to join the magical defense of the house.

Charmed Life features a Chrestomanci who turns out to be the grown-up Christopher Chant. He always wears silk dressing gowns around the mansion full of magic workers. Since he can be summoned by repeating his name three times, he tends to show up in his dressing gown. But our story begins with a boy named Cat (Eric) Chant and his vain, ringleted older sister Gwendolyn. The two go to live with Chrestomanci. Gwendolyn expects to be cosseted, if not revered, so she is enraged to find that's not what happens. Meanwhile, Cat wanders around, bewildered, finding out the various small secrets of a house full of magic. There's a mystery surrounding Cat and his sister that gradually emerges as the plot progresses. And then Gwendolyn disappears, leaving an astonished doppelganger behind.

Random Excerpt (from Charmed Life):

"Why were you in the bath?" he said, wondering whether to search the bathroom.

"I don't know. I just woke up there," said Janet, shaking out a tangle of hair ribbons in the bottom drawer. "I felt as if I'd been dragged through a hedge backward, and I'd no clothes on, so I was freezing."

"Why had you no clothes on?" Cat said, stirring Gwendolen's underclothes about, without success.

"I was hot in bed last night," said Janet. "So naked I came into this world. And I wandered about pinching myself—especially after I found this fabulous room. I thought I must have been turned into a princess. But there was this nightdress lying on the bed, so I put it on—"

"You've got it on back to front," said Cat.

Janet stopped scanning the things on the mantelpiece to look down at the trailing ribbons. "Have I? It won't be the only thing I'm going to get back to front, by the sound of it. Try looking in that artistic wardrobe. Then I explored outside here, and all I found was miles of long green corridor, which gave me the creeps, and stately grounds out the windows, so I came back in here and went to bed. I hoped that when I woke up it would all have gone away. And instead there was you. Found anything?"

"No," said Cat. "But there's her box—"

"It must be in there," said Janet.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

If you're going to write fantasy, you should read this book. And if you're a fantasy reader, you should, too. DWJ presents a delightfully diabolical, tongue-in-cheek look at all the most standard-issue fantasy tropes every written. This send-up is very, very funny, but in addition, it has helped me to think differently about my own writing. For example, I never serve my fantasy characters stew, and that's entirely due to this book. Note that Ms. Jones sets the whole thing up as a tour. (See also her book The Dark Lord of Derkholm. The Guide is a companion to that one.) Here are a few sample entries. Note that OMT stands for Official Management Term.

DUKES. This is the highest form of lord, often one of the KING's family. Very few of them are GOOD and most of them are wicked uncles at the very least. The few Good Dukes are always frantically busy and beset with cares of state [OMT]. The Rule is that all Dukes, Good or EVIL, are always forty years old or more. See also REGENTS.

from COLOUR CODING. Eyes. Black eyes are invariably Evil; brown eyes mean boldness and humour, but not necessarily goodness; green eyes always entail TALENT, usually for MAGIC but sometimes for MUSIC... grey eyes mean POWER or healing abilities (see HEALERS) and will be reassuring unless they look silver... blue eyes are always GOOD, the bluer the more Good present; and then there are violet eyes and golden eyes. People with violet eyes are often of Royal birth and, if not, always live uncomfortably interesting lives. People with golden eyes just live uncomfortably interesting lives, and most of them are rather fey into the bargain.

Of the hundreds of books that have taught me to write, Diana Wynne Jones's are among the few at the top of the list. I can only imagine that her books will continue to touch, delight, and teach writing to young readers for many years to come.

Thank you, Diana, for the treasure of your books. Through their cleverness, creativity, and wry good humor, I do feel I got to know you. Again, thank you.


See also my 2009 post, "The Queen of Children's Fantasy"; my recent review of DWJ's last book, Earwig and the Witch, and a review of the book before that, Enchanted Glass. You can find a complete list of Diana Wynne Jones's books at this Wiki page.

I will add that I wrote this post as part of a blog tour honoring DWJ. Here's the site where you can link to the other posts in the tour. You should be aware that Firebird has reissued some of Diana Wynne Jones's books in her honor with new introductions and extras, as follows:

Three Firebird reissues (DOGSBODY, FIRE AND HEMLOCK, and A TALE OF TIME CITY—each is the definitive edition, and each has an intro by a star—DOGSBODY (Neil Gaiman), A TALE OF TIME CITY (Ursula Le Guin), FIRE AND HEMLOCK (Garth Nix). FIRE AND HEMLOCK also features the essay "The Heroic Ideal," which DWJ wrote about the writing of the book; it has never before appeared alongside the book, or THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND (the Firebird edition is also definitive, entirely redesigned, with new art and material), the novella THE GAME, or her final book, EARWIG AND THE WITCH.

Yep, I have the updated Tough Guide to Fantasyland in my hot little hand, and I will lure you with the title of this special page, "How to Compose a Ballad." You will want to check out the map, too, and find out the secret of those epic fantasy names with the apostrophes in the middle.

The Queen of Children's Fantasy

Aha! You thought I was going to say J.K. Rowling, didn't you? J.K. Rowling is, rather, the queen of Harry Potter's world and also of England, the latter thanks to a bloodless coup in June 2006 (bloodless except for an accident involving one of the corgies). Diana Wynne Jones, though she does deign to reside in England, reigns over the world of children's fantasy. Terry Pratchett is not her royal consort, though it may seem like it at times. That would be Neil Gaiman.

Suffice it to say that if you haven't read any of DWJ's books, your life and your education are sadly lacking. The author's 2007 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement should slap your hand sufficiently to drive this point home. And yes, one of her books has been made into a movie: Howl's Moving Castle (2004), from respected Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Diana Wynne Jones is famous for her fresh, convoluted plots and for the invention of a character called Chrestomanci. She is also known for skewering sword-and-sorcery conventions, e.g., in books like The Dark Lord of Derkholm, which postulates that all of the characters on a particular fantasy world are actors, performing their roles at the behest of a greedy corporate entity for the benefit of a group of tourists. Even better, perhaps, is the companion book, a wry encyclopedia of tropes called The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which purports to be a tour guide (cover shown is from first edition). Here's a sample entry, one of my favorites:

STEW (the OMTs [official management terms] are thick and savoury, which translate as "viscous" and "dark brown") is the staple FOOD in Fantasyland, so be warned. You may shortly be longing passionately for omelette, steak, or baked beans, but none of these will be forthcoming, indoors or out. Stew will be what you are served to eat every single time. Given the disturbed nature of life in this land, where in CAMP you are likely to be attacked without warning...and in an INN prone to be the centre of a TAVERN BRAWL, Stew seems to be an odd choice as staple food, since, on a rough calculation, it takes forty times as long to prepare as steak. But it is clear the inhabitants have not yet discovered fast food. The exact recipe for Stew is of course a Management secret, but it is thought to contain meat of some kind and perhaps even vegetables. Do not expect a salad on the side.

Yet much as I love The Tough Guide, it is ultimately a book for grown-ups, and although Diana Wynne Jones's books are often funny, satire is too small a window through which to consider her work. Let's turn instead to her many marvelous books for children, beginning with the Chrestomanci titles.

Diana Wynne Jones envisions a series of parallel worlds related by differing causalities, or alternative outcomes of key events, and one of the worlds is our own. (Read about Hugh Everett and string theory for quantum mechanics-based thoughts on the concept.) In these worlds, magic is a commodity that is often misused by the criminal element. The most powerful enchanter in the related worlds, recognizable because he has nine lives, is appointed director and policeman over magic in all of the worlds. His title is Chrestomanci, and he can be summoned by repeating it three times in magical emergencies. (Click here for an A-Z Glossary of the Related Worlds as compiled by Helen Scott on the official DWJ website.)

The most important Chrestomanci books are The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life, which tell about the current Chrestomanci and his young successor, respectively. Christopher Chant is raised by a lovely, negligent society wife—or rather, by governesses. No one realizes for years that his powerful magic is constrained by the touch of silver. Meanwhile, he is walking the parallel worlds in what he thinks are dreams. As he is used by his avaricious uncle to smuggle illegal magical supplies, Christopher begins to lose his nine lives at an alarming rate. The tangle eventually gets untangled, but in the meantime, Christopher aids and abets a young runaway who happens to be the goddess of Asheth, along with her menace of a temple cat. To give you an idea of the kind of humor in Jones's books, the goddess wants nothing more than to be a British school girl, like the ones she reads about in a series of dippy books Christopher has brought her because she is bored.

In Charmed Life, Christopher is a grown-up now married to the Living Asheth, who has renamed herself Millie. He rambles about Chrestomanci Castle and indeed, the known worlds, in embroidered silk dressing gowns—of course, he does tend to be summoned unexpectedly to put out magical fires. The castle is partly a training ground for Chrestomanci's children and for his successor. When Cat (Eric) and Gwendolyn Chant are brought to live there, it takes the grown-ups a while to figure out that Gwendolyn is using her little brother's magic to fuel her own ambitions.

Another key book about Christopher Chant/Chrestomanci is Conrad's Fate, in which you can see the enchanter and Millie as teens. The rest of the books set in this series of worlds give us a Chrestomanci who simply makes cameo appearances, usually in the role of a rather tongue-in-cheek deus ex machina. But never fear, the young characters in these books do work out their own magic-related dilemmas. The Magicians of Caprona, The Pinhoe Egg, and Witch Week are also Chrestomanci books, and Jones has written four short stories involving her nine-lived enchanter, as well. Of these titles, I particularly like Witch Week, a tale that plays out in a world where witchcraft is forbidden. The setting is a school called Larwood House, and the book begins,

The note said: SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH. It was written in capital letters in ordinary blue ballpoint, and it had appeared between two of the geography books Mr. Crossley was marking. Anyone could have written it. Mr. Crossley rubbed his ginger mustache unhappily. He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 6B and wondered what to do about it.

The world of Witch Week considers such a note to be more than a prank; it's an accusation. But Mr. Crossley hesitates to inform his boss, who will probably call in an Inquisitor, a man authorized to use torture to root out and destroy witchcraft. As the school is rocked by magical happenings, including flocks of birds flying through classrooms and the sudden disappearance of every shoe in the entire school, the students in Class 6B try to uncover the identity of the resident witch and save each other from the forthcoming attentions of the Inquisitor.

Of course, Diana Wynne Jones has written many books besides her Chrestomanci titles. The most well known is probably Howl's Moving Castle, a book I dearly loved even before Miyazaki made it into an animated film. In this world, fairy tale rules tend to apply, so as the eldest of three sisters, Sophie knows she is destined to fail if she sets out to seek her fortune. But even working quietly in a hat shop, Sophie manages to offend the Witch of the Waste, getting herself turned into an elderly woman for her troubles. Deciding she has nothing to lose, Sophie hobbles out into the world, where she encounters a floating, traveling castle belonging to the wizard Howl and moves in, looking for adventure as well as answers. Howl is vain and moody, but he has met his match in practical, cantankerous Sophie. Pretty soon the two of them overcome their differences to deal with the growing threat of the Witch of the Waste, not to mention the problem of the fire demon who powers Howl's castle. Jones has written a couple of sequels to Howl's Moving Castle—Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, the latter being her most recent book (2008).

Most of the author's stories are rambunctious and sometimes mysterious adventures, but one of her very best books is quieter and often poignant. Dogsbody tells about a girl who is being raised by her aunt and uncle after she is orphaned. The story is told from the point of view of a puppy named Sirius, who gradually becomes aware of how badly Kathleen is treated in the household, especially by her aunt. Yet Sirius has his own enemies and his own past. He is no mere puppy, but the dog star himself in exile, falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. As allies and enemies converge, both Sirius and Kathleen fight to claim their selves and their futures. Dogsbody is astoundingly unique, well crafted, and in fact, just plain lovely.

Diana Wynne Jones has a knack for mixing ordinary life and magic that reminds me of Joan Aiken's work (e.g., the recently published collection of Armitage stories, The Serial Garden). Other than Aiken, I don't think anyone besides Jones has ever achieved the blend quite so beautifully—or with plots that escalate quite so madly. For example, consider Archer's Goon, another DWJ book I like very much. It begins:

The trouble started the day Howard came home from school to find the Goon sitting in the kitchen. It was Fifi who called him the Goon. Fifi was a student who lived in their house and got them tea when their parents were out. When Howard pushed Awful into the kitchen and slammed the door after them both, the first person he saw was Fifi, sitting on the edge of a chair, fidgeting nervously with her striped scarf and her striped leg warmers.
"Thank goodness you've come at last!" Fifi said. "We seem to have somebody's Goon. Look."
Howard looked the way Fifi's chin jerked and saw the Goon sitting in a chair by the dresser. He was filling most of the rest of the kitchen with long legs and huge boots. It was a knack the Goon had. The Goon's head was very small, and his feet were enormous. Howard's eyes traveled up a yard or so of tight faded jeans, jerked to a stop for a second at the knife with which the Goon was cleaning the dirty nails of his vast hands, and then traveled on over an old leather jacket to the little, round fair head in the distance. The little face looked half-daft.

Howard discovers that his father has been writing two thousand words of nonsense and sending them to Town Hall every month for some inexplicable reason. This month, the pages are missing. Howard gradually learns that there is more than one person trying to get their hands on the pages, and that each of these individuals is a kind of sorcerer who "farms" part of the city arrogantly and sometimes criminally. The mystery takes still more twists and turns before Howard learns the complete truth, and all along the way, the Goon looms just over his shoulder.

Aside from many wonderful standalone titles and several story collections, one other group of books is worth mentioning: the Dalemark Quartet. Here Jones delves into more serious and traditional fantasy. Dalemark is split between the freedom-loving earls of the North and the tyrannical earls of the South, so war often breaks out between the two sections of the land. I am especially fond of the first book, Cart and Cwidder, which begins with the murder of a musician who has been driving around the countryside with his children, putting on performances. But there was more to Clennen than meets the eye, and his children discover they must carry out his last mission while evading the reach of the ruthless earls of the South. Like many of Jones' books, this is a good example of the way the author draws a realistic picture of the bickering and support between siblings even as her plot takes us on an adventure colored by magic.

I will mention that Eight Days of Luke draws on Norse mythology, and that The Ogre Downstairs unites a quarrelsome group of newly minted stepsiblings when the kids are given magical chemistry sets and start getting themselves into trouble—there's a whiff of Edward Eager in that one. The Magicians of Caprona features two warring magical houses reminiscent of the Montagues and the Capulets. The Homeward Bounders works with the idea of parallel worlds in a more ominous way than the Chrestomanci titles do, creating a solitary and iconic young hero by book's end. Note that both Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock are Young Adult books, with a more mature sensibility. (I also recommend DWJ's adult fantasy, A Sudden Wild Magic, which has one of the funniest resolutions I've ever read in my life.)

Other notable books include The Merlin Conspiracy, A Tale of Time City, Wild Robert, Power of Three, Aunt Maria (U.S. title), The Time of the Ghost, and The Game, along with short stories in the author's own collections and other anthologies. I especially like "Chair Person" from Stopping for a Spell and "What the Cat Told Me" from Unexpected Magic.

Diana Wynne Jones had a strange childhood, which might explain in part how she turned out to be such an interesting person. You can read a brief but fascinating autobiography on her website, but I'll just quote from an interview on BookBrowse here:

I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving, hand-making pottery, and singing madrigals, for none of which I had either taste or talent. So, in intervals between trying to haunt the church and sitting on roofs hoping to learn to fly, I wrote enormous epic adventure stories which I read to my sisters instead of the real books we did not have. This writing was stopped, though, when it was decided I must be coached to go to University. A local philosopher was engaged to teach me Greek and philosophy in exchange for a dollhouse (my family never did things normally), and I eventually got a place at Oxford.
At this stage, despite attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, I did not expect to be writing fantasy. But that was what I started to write when I was married and had children of my own.

As a children's fantasy writer, I am sometimes asked who my influences are. Since I suspect interviewers don't want to hear a list of a hundred-plus books, I reluctantly narrow it down. And yes, Diana Wynne Jones is on my shortlist, more than anything because her work reminds me to use my own imagination boldly.

You may rejoice to hear that the latest DWJ drought is almost over: the author has a book called Enchanted Glass coming out in April 2010. Her website says of the book, "A stand-alone book, not part of any series, there are the expected magicians, but it also includes giant vegetables, revenge by cauliflower cheese (?!) and fortune-telling using racing tips." So yes, rest assured—Diana Wynne Jones is as unusual and funny a thinker and writer as ever.

I will end with one more quote from the author, also from the BookBrowse interview. The interviewer asked Ms. Jones if she prefers writing for children or adults, and what the differences are. The author replied, "Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only have to tell things to once."

To learn more about Diana Wynne Jones, visit her website, or click here to read an excellent Publishers Weekly interview from June 2006. See either her website or this nice Wikipedia article for a list of the author's books and short stories.

Note: I was inspired to write this post because I am hosting a book club discussion of The Lives of Christopher Chant on the Enchanted Inkpot fantasy blog tomorrow. You are welcome to join us.

Update: Read this lovely article about Diana Wynne Jones and her books at Under the Green Willow (July 2010).