Why do I like Howl's Moving Castle so much?

This is an important question, particularly during #MarchMagics #DWJMarch, when we celebrate all things Diana Wynne Jones (head to Kristen's blog on March 23 for the Howl's Moving Castle readalong).

I just reread the book and then rewatched the Miyazaki animated movie, and they both made me so happy I just had to sit down to analyze what is so wonderful about them. (Illustrations (other than the one from the movie below) are taken from the finalists in the Folio Society's competition to illustrate their edition of Howl's Moving Castle. Aren't they all gorgeous?! (Bigger versions at the link.) The winner is Marie-Alice Harel, and I am putting her illustrated edition on my Christmas wishlist now!)

Studio Ghibli

Katerina Cupova

The castle. What a fantastically brilliant, endlessly interesting idea. Like much of DWJ's magic, it's weird and complicated and there's no explanation of how it actually works. And yet, somehow it resonates as something that really should exist. Because doors—thresholds—are inherently magical, so being able to open a door into one place and then open it again into another—it just makes sense on some fundamental level. And the castle's movement is both metaphysical—inhabiting several places at the same time—and literal: the castle actually moves around, which is ridiculous and incongruous and hilarious and also ties back to folktales like Baba Yaga, so there's something deep in our psyche that believes in moving castles. Then DWJ isn't satisfied with all the levels of movement she's already got, so she moves the moving castle. (No, it makes sense, really!) That scene has got to be the most mind-blowing bit of magic any magician has ever accomplished! And the movie does it quite well.

Alejo and Vivian de los Rios

Lulu Chen

Sophie. One of my all-time-favourite characters, literary girl-crushes, people-whose-head-I-want-to-spend-time-in. I related (and still do relate) so much to her: I'm an oldest child; nothing exciting was ever going to happen to me; I was the responsible one who wanted her sisters to go out and find their dreams. But when Sophie starts talking to hats you can see DWJ's brilliance at creating characters: maybe she's quiet and responsible, but Sophie is also observant and imaginative and funny, and she has power she knows nothing about. (DWJ leaves it to us to figure this last part out. You can miss it the first time you read those pages.) When she is struck with the curse turning her into an old lady, her response is perfectly unexpected and perfectly in character and perfectly hilarious. She channels her inner old lady and marches off to stand up to wizards, sorceresses, kings and demons. (She's still pretty terrified of scarecrows, though.) I think the movie gets Sophie perfectly (even though they miss out on her power).

Marie-Alice Harel

Marina Evlanova

Howl. "He's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical ... but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone." "My impression," said the King, "was that Howl is an unprincipled, slippery rogue with a glib tongue and a clever mind." "You left out how vain he is." A very powerful wizard with some serious character flaws: Howl is so much fun! On this reread  I finally put my finger on what makes him so compellingly attractive: He respects Sophie. He whines at her, gets exasperated with her, complains about her, but he treats her as an equal, holds her agency inviolable and trusts her moral compass. He tries to protect her, but he listens to what she wants and seeks out her opinion. The movie portrays this very well, though I don't think Miyazaki made him grumpy enough!

Marie-Alice Harel

Kateřina Čupová

This post will get far too long if I talk about Calcifer, the fire demon, who was brilliantly voiced by Billy Crystal in the movie, or about Sophie's sisters and the brief but warm glimpses of sisterhood, or about all the layers of themes like illusion and deception and identity and what it means to have a heart. The movie makes some significant changes to the plot, but it gets the essence, and it's beautiful and colorful and a lot of fun.

I'm off to experiment with ginger lemon oatmeal cookies, which if they turn out to be as delicious and bright and different as I'm hoping will be the perfect food metaphor.

#MarchMagics and #DWJMarch

A bit late off the mark, but I wanted to send everyone to We Be Reading, where Kristen is hosting her annual celebration of Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones.

This month the read-alongs are Pratchett's Wee Free Men (discussion starting March 9) and Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle (discussion starting March 23). These are both ultimate comfort reads for me, so I will be happy to participate.

Also I'm going to rewatch Miyazaki's beautiful animated movie of Howl's Moving Castle.

But I think my goal this month will be to read one of the few of her books I haven't read yet (I've been saving them as little treats to myself.) Hmmm. Possibly Wild Robert.

Unfortunately, I'm behind on the reading I wanted to already have done, because I had the flu, and I was so sick I couldn't read! (That's the worst!) And of course there are all the other things I couldn't get done while I was sick. Well, even if I don't manage to reread Wee Free Men by this Saturday, I've practically memorized the thing, so I can still join the discussion!

Recommendations for my 12-year old nephew, Part 1

Just got a text from my sister-in-law with a fairly common question: her son has finished Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Percy Jackson—what can he read next?

Well, lots of people have created their own lists, but maybe it's time I made my own. Based on my bookshelf, my own memories of reading, and my sons' reading, I'm going to do a couple of posts with a few suggestions, sort of divided into categories.

Classics Everyone Should Read (IMHO)

The Borrowers, by Mary Norton. What is it about the idea of little people that's so fascinating?  What makes this story great, other than descriptions of how a family lives under the floorboards of a human house, "borrowing" what they need from the humans, is the cautious friendship between the borrower daughter and a human boy. Just delightful. And if you like books about small people, you should also try The Cricket in Times Square and Stuart Little.

Five Children and It, and everything else by E. Nesbit. Wonderful adventures set in early 20thC England, in which kids get to run around without adult supervision and find wish-granting creatures and get into hilarious magical trouble. And if you like the British period setting, you should also try Edgar Eager's books, which are very similar.

The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. Five-book epic fantasy about an assistant pig-keeper, a wizard, a hero, and a princess, fighting the powers of darkness in a mythical version of Wales. You could say it's The Lord of the Rings for the younger set. Or you could just enjoy Taran's adventures as he stumbles his way into heroism. (Princess Eilonwy is the original kick-ass heroine, btw.) And if this stimulates your love for all things wizardly and epic, you might be ready for A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Leguin (for a slightly older audience).

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. Is it fantasy? Is it sci-fi? Is it an amazing book that everyone should read? Yes and yes. A tesseract is a wrinkle in time, and it allows Meg and her precocious younger brother Charles Wallace to travel across the galaxy to rescue their father from IT. Mind-blowing and so convincing to my young self that I half-seriously asked my high school biology teacher if there was such a thing as farandolae (that's actually from the second book of the trilogy, but anyway)(OK, it's a quintet, but the first three books are the best)(IMHO).

Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. Now we're really getting into classics! I adored this book as a child, read it a million times I swear. It has some pretty sad bits: it's an entirely realistic life story of a horse in Victorian England. But utterly compelling!

The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley. Yes, I went through a horse phase when I was a preteen. There are, maybe 25 books in the Black Stallion series, and I read them all, multiple times. They do get a bit formulaic after a while, but the first book is a truly great read, and if you can't get enough of horses, it's wonderful to have 24 more books ahead of you!

The Chrestomanci books, by Diana Wynne Jones. And then read everything else she wrote! DWJ, as we bloggers affectionately call her, requires several posts of her own to do her justice (if you click on her name in the labels section below, you'll get all the posts I've done about her so far). She is the Grand Lady of British Fantasy—imaginative, deep, compelling, and almost always very, very funny. The Chrestomanci books are about a nine-lived enchanter who has to sort out magical problems in various parallel universes connected to our own. You can start with any of them, but here is a suggested reading order from DWJ's website.


This post is getting so long I decided to deal with more contemporary picks in an entirely separate post. What classics from your childhood should I have added to my list for my 12-year-old nephew?

My sister-in-law and anyone else looking for great reads for kids (or themselves!) should definitely check out Shannon Messenger's awesome blog, for more Middle-Grade recommendations every Monday.

DWJ Month: Let's celebrate Diana Wynne Jones!

It's Diana Wynne Jones month, you say? Who says? Who decides these things? Well, in this case it's Kristen at We Be Reading, who is going to have a DWJ post EVERY DAY this month. I salute her boundless energy and ambition! My ambitious plan is to read all Kristen's posts so that I can be reminded of DWJ books I haven't read for a while (or at all), and then read as many of those books as I can this month. And I might post once or twice about them.

This is great fun because I love rereading books when it's been long enough that I don't remember what happens in them. That was the case with Time of the Ghost and House of Many Ways.

House of Many Ways is a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle. Sophie and Howl show up as supporting characters in several very amusing scenes, but the heroine is the quietly stubborn Charmain, who would really rather be reading a book, thank you very much, but if she absolutely has to go take care of her great uncle's house while he is being treated by elves for a strange illness, then fine, at least it gets her away from her annoying parents. Little does she know what she's getting herself in for! I love the house, which similar to Howl's castle in its space-bending magic, but with its own personality and rules. I love Charmain's relationship with the unexpected apprentice who is rubbish at magic. (Charmain echoes Sophie's way of dealing with magical disasters: you just have to tell things very firmly what you want them to do!) I have a special spot of affection for the well-meaning King and Princess, who are doing their very best even though they have no idea what's going on under their very noses. I don't think it's too spoilery to say that the villains get a very satisfying comeuppance at the end!  A bit quieter and lighter than Howl's Moving Castle, but the same world, the same magic, the same fun.

Time of the Ghost has an entirely different feel to it: spooky and twisty, more like Fire and Hemlock or Hexwood, except for a slightly younger audience. It's a book that I don't want to spoil by revealing anything about the plot, because nothing is as it seems and you figure things out at the same time as the narrator does. I will say that DWJ gets the experience of being a ghost down perfect.* And I'll also say that this book convinced me never to participate in a seance or pretend to worship an imaginary ancient being: you never know what you might inadvertently awaken! (Reminds me of Verdigris Deep, by Francis Hardinge: better not wish on a wishing well, either!) There's some beautiful landscape description in this book, and it's also very interesting to read it after reading DWJ's autobiography, since many aspects of the family are taken from her own childhood (a rather terrifying thought).

*Because I totally know what that's like.

Diana Wynne Jones' Magid Series

I'm doling out the Diana Wynne Jones books I haven't read yet, saving them as treats for myself, knowing there won't be any more. (Although there is one coming out this year, The Islands of Chaldea, which she had left unfinished on her death and was finished by her sister.)(It's an interesting story—the story of its completion, I mean. I look forward to reading the book.)

I read The Merlin Conspiracy when it first came out (in 2003), not realizing that it had a prequel. (They call it a companion novel: the plots are entirely separate, but the events in Deep Secret happen first, and the character of Nick Mallory makes a lot more sense in Merlin if you get to know him first in Secret.) Deep Secret (1997) was re-released last year by Harper Collins with a cover to match the rest of their Diana Wynne Jones editions, and I bought it for myself at Christmas, happy to discover another book set in the Magid universe. (They'll probably come out with a matching paperback of Merlin, which I'll want but won't be able to justify, since I already have the hardcover. Sigh.)

Deep Secret was a lot of fun. I'd say the universe of the Magids is a grown-up version of the Chrestomanci universe. The Magids are like a bunch of Chrestomancis trying to maintain the balance of magic among the worlds, only they're a little less omniscient and more hapless. Deep Secret is told from the point-of-view of the youngest Magid, Rupert, who, of course, is given the least pleasant magid tasks, and he keeps screwing them up. His attempts to get things unravelled end him up at the Hotel Babylon where a sci fi convention is going on, and doesn't Jones just have fun skewering that world! (Very lovingly, though!) As with the Chrestomanci books, the forces of good in the universe work through the bungled messes everyone makes of things and the tangled plot threads get tied up very neatly despite Rupert's worst efforts. (If you enjoyed Gaiman's Stardust, you'll appreciate this different take on the How Many Miles to Babylon nursery rhyme.)

The Merlin Conspiracy is set in an alternate British Isles, with a lot more magic than our world. There are some nasty people conspiring against the King, and only Roddy, Grundo and Nick (and the really annoying twins Isadora and Ilsabil) have any chance of stopping them. First they each have to learn how their own magic works (a common theme for Jones: if you think you're not talented, it's because your talent doesn't work the way everyone expects it to, so be patient and don't listen to them. Your talent might just be what saves the world.) It's a book crowded with magic, myth, elephants and salamanders, and a confusing number of plot threads that all affect each other in weird ways (that's what it has most in common with Deep Secret). (They also both have really odious bad people—but then all Diana Wynne Jones books have really odious bad people. She doesn't do grand villains like Sauron or Voldemort, which are actually easier to defeat because of how grandly villainous they are. Odious people are another matter entirely.)

I liked Deep Secret better than I liked The Merlin Conspiracy, but when I reread Merlin after reading Secret, I enjoyed it a lot more than my first reading. I had always felt that I was missing something about Merlin, and Secret gave me the background I needed to put it in context. (Plus, you never get all of a Diana Wynne Jones book on one read—I should know that by now!) Deep Secret is considered an adult book (I guess because the protagonist is an adult, and she mentions sex one or two times), and The Merlin Conspiracy is a children's book (because it has children protagonists), but that didn't make a difference to me. I would say Secret is funnier—it's more overtly satirizing our own world—, whereas Merlin is more absurd: funny because it juxtaposes more and more random things, but potentially annoying if you want everything to just line up and make sense.

Deep Secret is one of those layered desserts people like to call Sex in a Pan, where you basically pick all your favourite desserty things like pudding and whip cream and nuts and cakey bits and caramel and shortbread and layer them on top of each other. Or, better yet, throw them all in a bowl and call it trifle. And Merlin Conspiracy is a one-pot meal where all your favourite vegetables and meat cook together to make some sort of delicious soup or stew. They both have lots of the best ingredients, apparently randomly thrown together, and they're both more than the sum of their parts.

These might not be the first books I'd recommend if you've never read Diana Wynne Jones. (Start with Howl's Moving Castle, Charmed Life, or The Dark Lord of Derkholm.) But they are satisfying meals for fans who want to spend more time in a DWJ universe.

MMGM: The Ogre Downstairs, by Diana Wynne Jones

Kristen over at We Be Reading is hosting DWJ March, in honour of Diana Wynne Jones, a year after her death. I'm doing a guest post for Kristen tomorrow, but I thought I'd get into the spirit of things myself, especially after reading this book.

I keep finding Diana Wynne Jones books I haven't read, which is wonderful: like finding a $20 bill in the pocket of the coat you haven't worn for a while. I found this one in the library while researching for my guest blog. The Ogre Downstairs was in the middle-grade section beside the Chrestomanci books and Archer's Goon.

It started a little slowly for me. The adventures of a step-family with a magical chemistry set at first seemed a little too episodic and predictable--similar in concept to Half Magic, by Edgar Eager (which I love, btw): kids mess around with magic and something different goes wrong every time. The two sets of kids (Caspar, Johnny and Gwinny from the mom, Malcolm and Douglas from the dad) are obnoxious to each other and their parents, and the omniscient narration skips around a bit, so at first I didn't have any character I was sympathizing with.

But in typical Diana Wynne Jones fashion, the complications multiply exponentially, the characters develop in realistic but quirky ways, and this book is really, really funny. For example, it's not just that the toffee bars come to life; it's that they keep escaping and they love to congregate on the radiators.

"Bring some biscuits when you get the box," said Caspar. "The toffee bars may be hungry too." [hilarious line all by itself]

So Johnny rammed the lid back on and went down to the kitchen, while Caspar collected all the toffee wrappers he could find and made a careful count. It came to nineteen. The thought of catching nineteen nimble toffee bars was a little daunting. [Another sentence that makes me grin every time: the alliteration, the understatement, the juxtaposition of nimble and toffee.] He had only succeeded in catching one by the time Johnny came back with a large cardboard box and a packet of Small Rich Tea Biscuits, and the only reason he caught that one was that Johnny had bitten a piece off it the evening before. It was much slower than the others in consequence, and went with a sort of limp. [This is the kind of thing DWJ is brilliant at: the extra little realistic detail that makes her magic completely believable. And so funny!] 

"Oh, the poor thing!" Johnny said, when Caspar showed him. "I'll never eat another toffee bar again!" He put it tenderly in the cardboard box and made it comfortable with some comics and a small Rich Tea biscuit. [Comics!  For a toffee bar!] It did not want to stay. Crippled as it was, it kept trying to get out, until Caspar thought of putting the box against the radiator. The lame bar seemed to like that. It curled up peacefully and began to look a little sticky.

And that's just the potion that brings things to life. There's also the flying one, the switching places one, the one that turns you different colours, the invisibility one. . . The two halves of the family at first compete to see what they can do with the chemicals, but as they get into deeper and deeper messes they have to help each other out. In the meantime the Ogre (the dad) is getting more and more frustrated with these kids who make so much noise and cause so much trouble. And the consequences end up being very real.

Diana Wynne Jones is brilliant at understanding how children think and behave and how family dynamics work. All her children can be perfectly beastly: they whine, they get jealous, they are cowardly and malicious and selfish. But they are also creative and empathetic and flexible and kind. Siblings both hate and love each other. Parents don't understand kids. Kids make dreadful mistakes. But if there's love in the mix it all comes out okay somehow. The resolution of the complicated mess at the end of The Ogre Downstairs is funny and sweet and quite satisfying.

The Ogre Downstairs is a trip to one of those great candy stores that has crazy candy from everywhere and you can't even decide what you want to spend your allowance on.

For more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday choices, go to Shannon Messenger's marvelous blog.

Diana Wynne Jones

I have a couple of half-finished blogs, but I have to put them on hold to pay tribute to one of the great writers who has just passed away. If only I could come up with words to do her justice.

First I'll send you over to this post from Book Aunt, because she does a great job of summing up Diana Wynne Jones' multiplicity of books. Then you should read Jones' rather astonishing autobiography.

After reading about her life, it won't surprise you to hear that Diana Wynne Jones' books are odd, quirky, funny, "tilted away sideways*" from anything else you've ever read. Her writing is endlessly imaginative, sharply humourous, and deeply complex. There are books of hers I've reread several times and still don't get. My favourite books I reread often and get something new out of them every time. Even the lightest-hearted stories leave you feeling vaguely disquieted, as if some of your cherished assumptions have been subtly altered but you're not sure how.

Where should you start? You're most likely to be able to lay hands easily on Howl's Moving Castle and the Chrestomanci books, as they are justifiably her most popular works. The wizard Howl and Chrestomanci are both marvellous creations: powerful, arrogant, good but deeply flawed. And Sophie (of Howl's Moving Castle) is the best heroine ever. Period. Calcifer the demon is fasinating and the castle itself is brilliant; I could go on and on about Howl's Moving Castle. It's one of my all-time-favourite, bring-to-desert-island, reread-whenever-I'm-feeling-down books. The Chrestomanci books, besides having Chrestomanci himself (and don't we all wish there really were such a person, to step in and fix everything at the last minute, though not without challenging us to do most of the fixing ourselves, thus discovering our own hidden strength; and not without getting thoroughly exasperated at our ability to have screwed things up this badly in the first place) are a wonderful introduction to the Diana Wynne Jones' multiverse, her collection of parallel universes, most of which are far more interesting than our own. Here's a suggestion from her website about how to read the Chrestomanci books; like the multiverse itself, they proliferate in multiple directions, and it doesn't really matter which one you read first. They are short, easy reads and great fun, but there's a core of seriousness--Jones' villains are truly scary, once you find out who the villains really are.

My next favourite books after these (in fact, I may even like them more, but I don't have my own copies so I haven't reread them in a while) are The Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin. These are absolutely hilarious. They manage to be both a brilliant satire of the whole fantasy genre and perfectly plotted fantasy novels in their own right. I think I'm going to have to order these online because they should be in my library.

Then there are her books for older readers with seriously mind-bending concepts and narration: Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock are the ones I have read. If you like books where you're never sure what's real because someone is messing with reality, check these out. Dogsbody is another more serious novel for older readers, a wonderful, sad story that many people mention as a favourite (not nearly so mind-bending, in case you were worried).

She returns to the multiverse with The Merlin Conspiracy, which I could explain as Chrestomanci for people who can follow really convoluted plots--convoluted in a good way, with a crazy cast of characters and universes and an ending that comes much too soon despite the 472 pages. And she plays with reality again, doing yet another take on magical people who have to take care of things so everything doesn't fall apart, with Enchanted Glass. (Best use of vegetables in fiction, BTW.)

I'm going to go on a quest for Diana Wynne Jones books I haven't read yet (and she's a prolific author, so there are many). I'll let you know when I find more favourites. In the meantime, you can tell me which your favourites are. Let's make a point of introducing her to as many people as we can.

*A quotation from The Merlin Conspiracy