Book: Witch Week

Diana Wynne Jones
Young Adult
Greenwillow / 2001
Hard Back / 288 Pages
Series Chrestomanci #3

Someone in 6B is a witch. And, in the alternate reality described in Diana Wynne Jones's Witch Week, that's not at all a good thing to be. Jones plunks her readers directly into the life of Larwood House, a school in a present-day England that's a lot like the world we know, except for one major difference: witches are everywhere, and they are ruthlessly hunted by inquisitors. With witty, erudite writing, Jones tells of the adventures of the class of 6B as they set about to discover who among them is a witch. Clearly it's not the popular Simon or the perfect Theresa. Could it be fat Nan or sluggish Charles? Mysterious Nirupam or shifty-eyed Brian?

Jones skillfully and seamlessly switches from one point of view to another, creating a comic companion piece to Lord of the Flies as she shows with perfect understanding the way children torment each other--and save each other. She neatly interweaves the dramatic plot with knowing descriptions of school life, as when lumpen Nan warily observes the popular girls: "At lessons, she discovered that Theresa and her friends had started a new craze. That was a bad sign. They were always more than usually pleased with themselves at the start of a craze... The craze was white knitting, white and clean and fluffy, which you kept wrapped in a towel so that it would stay clean. The classroom filled with mutters of, 'Two purl, one plain, twist two....'"

I picked this book up because It as about witches & I wanted a new book for the challenge

What I liked the Most? The results of the Simon Says spell had me laughing out loud.

What I liked the Least? Nothing really

Review: Well evidently this is a series (didn’t know that when I picked up the book) but I was able to follow along without any problem at all. Sign of a superb writer. It’s actually completely hysterical in parts and complete true in others. This could have turned out to be a dark gloomy book, but it wasn’t. Bravo!

Recommended to: Someone ready to laugh

Best Quote: “What makes you a real girl or boy is that no one laughs at you. If you are imitation or unreal, the rules give you a right to exist provided you do what the real ones or brutes say. What makes you into me or Charles Morgan is that the rules allow all the girls to be better than me and all the boys better than Charles Morgan.”