Charmed life diana wynne jones review6/11/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() 'Refusal to talk down to children'ĭiana Wynne Jones was prolific, for which I am eternally grateful she wrote dozens of books and tens of dozens of stories. Published in 1977, it almost certainly was one of the inspirations, conscious or otherwise, for Harry Potter, but, much as I love Harry, Charmed Life, for me, is the richer, wittier, stranger book. An evil wizard attempts to take over, and magical chaos unfurls. It’s the story of a young wizard, Cat, who is taken with his sister Gwendolen to live in Chrestomanci castle, which is a both a castle and a kind of Magic HQ, the place from which a devastatingly handsome wizard, clad largely in ornate dressing gowns, runs the magical world. Reading in the car inevitably made me sick, but even after I had vomited semi-neatly out of the car window, I kept reading: it’s a book I’ve always found entirely impossible to set down. I began to read Diana Wynne Jones’s Charmed Life when I was about eight, on a long car journey. Left: from the front cover of Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones right: Katherine Rundell, credit Nina Subin Here's why she thinks this clever, quirky fantasy will stand the test of time. What's the childhood book that made you who you are today?Īuthor Katherine Rundell knew Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones was pretty special, when it kept her entertained as a girl through a bout of car sickness. ![]()
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