DWJ March: Wrap-Up

There's so much I want to mention today, the last day of Diana Wynne Jones March. It's been a great experience and I've loved sharing it with all of you.

First, I want to thank all of those who wrote guest posts for the event. Thank you to Kerry (twice!), Sabrina, Jean, Karen, Cat, Kim and Tif! Some of the magic of Diana Wynne Jones is that she has such loyal and loving fans.

Second, thank you to those who participated in the watch-alongs -- Lauren, Nina, Tasha, Sarah and Candy -- and read-alongs. Diana is definitely best when shared.

And, finally, thank you to everyone who wrote or drew or created or otherwise shared the DWJ love this month. Of course, just because March is over, we don't need to put Diana's books back on the shelf for eleven months to be neglected. Keep reading and creating and sharing and Diana will stay alive through us.

Until next DWJ March,
K

DWJ March: Books I Read This Month

The blog has been so busy this month that I haven't had time to share what I've been reading but rest assured that I've made the most of this event. I read the two read-along books, of course -- Howl's Moving Castle and A Tale of Time City. I also read Spellbound: Fantasy Stories Chosen by Diana Wynne Jones and about half of Reflections: On the Magic of Writing. I'm going to read the rest slowly, to savor the special experience of learning from Diana. There's so much to absorb that I don't want to rush through it. Finally, I read three more novels for the first time each --

Archer's Goon was fantastic. I loved the twists and turns. Though the ending was Diana's standard quickly escalated and resolved type, I was able to follow for once. The parents were more complex than in many DWJ stories and were actually good people, though a bit cranky because of circumstance. It's definitely one that I'm going to find my own copy of to reread regularly.

Wild Robert was really short, more of a novella but it was a good story. It was another one that one wishes had been expanded into a bigger story but that also has value in its smaller form. It's got magic and history and the fate of a stately home. What could be more interesting?!

Power of Three was quite different in language and cadence and it took a little while to get used to. I loved the way it built up though and connected fantasy and reality. I also enjoyed the friendships and sibling relationships. This is definitely one that I want to read again though, especially as I had to read it on my iPhone since, in a rare fail, my library system didn't have a hard copy of it. It was hard to read it in long stretches and I got distracted by the high page count. E-books are still not really my thing, I guess!

I have just a few DWJ books left to read for the first time: the four Dalemark books, Deep Secret and The Merlin Conspiracy, A Sudden Wild Magic, Hexwood, Unexpected Magics and The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. There's also a new collection of stories out -- Vile Visitors that I'll have to pick up that I think collects a few of her earlier works. It'll be a sad day when I'm done with all of these.

If I haven't heard from you yet, tell me which DWJ book(s) you read this month. How was your  reading experience?

Exploring new magic and adventures,
K

DWJ March Read-Along: A Tale of Time City

Welcome to the A Tale of Time City discussion! I hope that a few of you got a chance to read/reread this one because it's got a complex and exciting plot with a wide variety of characters and ideas. It was my second time reading the book and, as expected, I understood and enjoyed it more this time through.

I want to make this more of an open discussion. So, tell me, did you enjoy this story? What did you think of the relationships between Jonathan, Sam and Vivian? Were you able to follow the Time City plot? Would you ever want to be a time observer?

The first time I read the story, I felt a little bit lost by the end. I understood the basics but not necessarily the mechanics. This time, I had no problem following it and I appreciated the intricacies of the plot more since I wasn't struggling to keep up. I also was able to pay attention more to the details of the technology and environment that Diana created -- chairs and beds with no real surfaces, high tech belts and more -- and I really enjoyed it all. There were some things I liked less, though, and those were the instances of vengeance/punishment, or lack thereof. Anastasia recently mentioned in her post about The Game that she was annoyed that kids escape punishment a lot in DWJ's stories. I found that to be the case for one character in this story, Sam, but the opposite for another child, Vivian Lee. Sam was let off the hook with only a forced-feeding when he stole a large amount of money from a friend. He never even expressed remorse and by the end, he didn't seem to be affected by it at all, as he was already asking for more butter-pies. Vivian, on the other hand, was sent into history all alone because she was a "baddie", quite a terrible fate in the scheme of things to be a child, all alone in a strange place. Is there any action that a child of eleven/twelve can't be redeemed from? It seems harsh and unfair.

But speaking of butter-pies, there's a butter-pie recipe out there that someone created. It seems extremely labor intensive and prone to melty accidents and I'm not entirely sure of how it would hold together. Still, the chance to taste a butter-pie might be worth it! Does anyone have the kitchen skills to make these (and can I come visit)?

Finding time for good books and tasty treats,
K

DWJ March: Guest Post from Tif

The Magic of Diana Wynne Jones

I am a newcomer to Diana Wynne Jones, reading my first novel by her in the spring of 2011.  The book was Dogsbody and Kristen was the one who actually provided me with this gift of work that I had no idea previously existed.  Since then, I have read two additional books (The Game and Howl’s Moving Castle), only increasing my love of DWJ’s work.  She has the talent to bring magic into a story that leaves the reader spellbound long after the story is complete. 

In an interview that I recently read with the author (featured at the end of my copy of Howl’s Moving Castle), a specific question actually struck a chord with me that is still reverberating in so many ways.  Let me share the full question and answer with you here . . .

Doors that open onto many different places figure prominently in Howl’s world.  What makes doorways so powerful and mysterious?

Doors are very powerful things.  Things are different on either side of them.  This applies not only to magic portals, where you might find a whole other world when you open the portal, or the kingdom of the dead, or even heaven or hell; but it applies to quite ordinary doors too.  Your front door gives you the street (you hope!) and your back door may well give you a garden, and indoors you open a door into another room.  But there is always the possibility that it will be a street you have never seen before, a garden that belongs to Bluebeard or someone, or a room that is in some other house entirely.  In Howl’s world, since this is a magic world, these possibilities actually come to be true a lot of the time.  But there is no guarantee that it is not like this in our own world too.  In my home, I always leave more doors open, just to prevent another place suddenly turning up on the other side of them.

In the past eight years, I have moved three times and am currently preparing for a fourth and fifth in the next year.  In each of these moves, my front door has opened to multiple streets and varying worlds, each in a different state.  I have seen mountains.  I have seen gardens.  I have seen the land of lakes.  I have met so many different people and formed friendships.  After recently reading Howl’s Moving Castle, I learned that I have been walking across different worlds in my own life, just as he opened his door and walked amongst different worlds in his.  And, I have learned that with each open door, there has been possibility sitting right in front of me.  Though these upcoming relocations wear heavy on my heart, DWJ made me realize that I need to open myself to the magic of the real world.  I need to explore the gardens, submerge myself in the people, and discover the possibilities that lay ahead.

DWJ writes magical stories, but she also does so much more than that.  She enchants her readers to see more in the real world, to open our own magical eyes to what may be.  There are so many more worlds out there to discover, and I can’t wait to read her tales and see more of the world around me on my own adventures.

Thank you Kristen for introducing me to these worlds and to the author who has helped to expand my own!  This is only the beginning for me!

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Tif is a lover of literature, discovering new worlds since the time of her childhood under the sheets with a flashlight.  She is a wife, mother of two, freelance writer, advocate of literacy, lover of photography, and passionate about writing in all its forms.  She will be celebrating six years of blogging at Tif Talks Books later this year.

DWJ March: Odds and Ends #4

almost all my DWJ books in one place ... finally

I just wanted to share a couple more DWJ posts with you before the month ends -

Jenny wrote about Changeover, Diana's adult novel that is sadly super out-of-print.

Sarah has made paper art of Diana and it's awesome!

Anastasia reviewed The Game and The Dark Lord of Derkholm. This gal has rocked the DWJ reading this month!

Also, these are the DWJ-related photos I've taken this month. I think they sum up my experience nicely.

celebrating my large library system

Reflections, Time City and a little sunshine

A bit of Archer's Goon and my hand

The rules

The back of Spellbound

Howl is a slitherer-outer

Howl's Moving Castle

The front of Spellbound

Sadly winding things down,

K

DWJ March: Guest Post from Kerry

ALL THE BOOKS IS BELONGING TO (AND TO BE READ BY) ME

I have a guilty secret. (All right, I have more that one of those, but let’s stick to one at a time.) You see, I have lots of books on my shelves (and on my Kindle) that I’ve never read. I don’t mind the ones on the Kindle so much; they’re generally things I want to try or series where I’ve got behind in my reading but not my purchasing. But the ones on the book cases, those I regret, because so many of them are the lost books of my childhood and youth.

When I was young, I would discover a new author, fall in love with their work and want to have all their books at once. Of course, I didn’t have a job or even much pocket money, so that was easier said than done. I did the obvious thing. I haunted second hand bookshops and library sales and bought up whatever was there that I could afford. I ended up with lots of old (and sometimes very tatty) paperbacks, most of which remain on my bookshelves to this day.

However, I was a young and new reader, which meant there was a downside to this. I never found the time to read all of them, because the next exciting new author would come along and I’d do it all over again. Some examples of such authors are Mary Stewart, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy L. Sayers (I did eventually get all those read due to joining a Sayers mailing list at some point in the last decade or so), Dorothy Dunnett, Margery Allingham and, of course, Diana Wynne Jones. There are others too, I’m sure.

Here’s guilty secret number two. I’m an avid reader, but I’m a sporadic blogger. I’d love to be a better one, but life, family and illness (I have ME/CFS) tend to get in the way. In June 2011, I decided to move from having a general blog to a reading blog (I hesitate to call it a book blog, as it tends to be little more than my reactions to the books I’ve read, when I feel well enough to write something down).

One of the features I planned for this new blog was to read some of those unread books. I had already considered reading the DWJ books I owned and never read when I realised how very unwell she was, not long before she died. She was one of my first “Author Reads” with the idea expanding to all her books, not just the ones I owned and hadn’t read. I’m working through Mary Stewart and Georgette Heyer (and a few others) as well. I also added Anne McCaffrey when she also died in 2011.

I admit I haven’t got far yet. I’m up to Power of Three (which I intend to have read by the time this post goes live) and I skipped ahead to read Dogsbody to my son and Fire and Hemlock when Kristen held a readalong of that book. It’s only six out of 36, but I love knowing I have all those books waiting for me to get to them. I gave myself no time limit for reading her books, just a plan to do it and enjoy myself while I do.

I admit that so far, my favourite books haven’t changed (Eight Days of Luke, Dogsbody and Fire and Hemlock) but there are plenty of rereads and new reads ahead of me. I’m looking forward to it ever so much. I’m not going to rush, I’m going to savour each book (and hopefully get my son to join in with me for at least some of them; I’m sure he’d love Archer’s Goon for example). I’m not going to care if it takes me weeks or years to work through to the end. I don’t even want to acknowledge that there is now an end of her wonderful stories, but I guess I can always start all over again if I wish.

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About Kerry: I’m a wife and mother of one, living in New Zealand, who has ME/CFS (which tends to rule my life a lot more than I would like). I only manage to blog sporadically, but you can find my bookish posts at Too Many Books, Too Hard to Choose (http://rocalisa.wordpress.com) and stitching stuff at Sometimes Stitching (http://lahaylia.wordpress.com). Points to anyone who can guess one of my favourite authors from the URLS of my blogs.

DWJ March: Reflections on Sunday (4)

First, I would like to say congratulations to Nina (a.k.a. Topcho) from Bulgaria who has won the bronze Howl and Sophie necklace. She was one of the participants in the first viewing of Howl's Moving Castle so I know she's a true fan of Diana's most famous couple! If you're interested in buying a necklace for yourself, just visit Authored Adornments on Etsy.

Also, Cat Gerlach is having a contest on her website to win e-book and print copies of one of her stories, inspired by Diana's work. Click over there to enter!

I'm still not quite half of the way through Reflections. It's taking a long time to read because I am rereading so many parts of it and sometimes marking multiple passages on a page. I feel like I'm really getting to know Diana through her words, whether they be scholarly or for an audience of children and I'm learning so many useful things.

What I want to talk about this week is censorship, but not the kind you might think of. What I'm concerned about is parental censorship. When Diana was a girl, her parents wouldn't let her or her sisters read books that they didn't approve of, that is anything but realistic fiction or classical myths.

"When my mother was a small girl, around 1908-9, she was addicted to fairy stories--any story that began 'Once upon a time' and went on to talk about princes and princesses and magic. These, in those days, were so much despised that you could almost only get them as little booklets printed on cheap paper and sold for two coppers at the slush end of the news agent's. But she saved up her pennies and she bought one booklet a month--and read and reread them avidly. Until the day her father caught her reading them. He was furious. He punished her. Then he took all the booklets away and burned them. He said they were not about real facts and so they would destroy her mind, and he forbade her ever to read such things again. And she obeyed him. He died soon after, which kind of fixed it for her.
I never met my grandfather--for which I am rather glad. I don't think we'd have got on."

"The third reason [why Diana and her sisters had barely any books] was censorship by my mother. She had been trained as a child to believe that fantasy was bad for you and that you should only read a book if it was literature."

" ... I learned [fantasy's] value from not having it, or at least not having it in books very much. There were glimmerings, just enough to set up a craving of the kind you have when you are seriously deficient in some vitamin and, oddly enough, nothing I wrote in those exercise books was fantasy. I did not think it was allowed. Fantasy was 'sentimental nonsense.'"

Sometimes I find myself steering Z away from certain books (Captain Underpants and its like, usually) having what I think are perfectly valid reasons for not letting him read those books. But now I'm starting to wonder if I'm keeping him from experiencing something important. Am I not allowing him to explore certain topics or types of humor that would actually have an impact on the growth of his imagination? Am I making those books more attractive by banning them? And am I simply stifling his own path of discovery by putting up roadblocks, by forcing my own ideas of good and bad children's literature on him? Am I denying him the chance to choose for himself? Though my mom censored which films I was allowed to watch and at what age, I can't recall her ever keeping books from me. I chose my own books at the library and checked them out without running them past her first. It made me feel empowered and in control. I always felt that I was reading exactly what I wanted to be reading. So, I'm going to try and let go a bit -- to stop passing judgment on some of the books that Z chooses to read. This doesn't mean that I won't gently offer "better" literature to him and that I won't choose books for our read-togethers that I think he should be exposed to but I will also allow him a space to explore, a place where his imagination can expand and adjust.

Learning to be a better guardian,
K

DWJ March: Guest Post from Sabrina

Jonesing for a Good Read: What Makes Diana Wynne Jones Magical

Diana Wynne Jones is one of the authors I foist on everyone who asks for a fantasy reading recommendation. Because I didn’t discover her work until I was well into my twenties (thanks to the Miyazaki film version of HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE), I try to make up for lost time and spread the word of an author whose works deserve to be widely read.

My relationship with HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is a bit backwards. Usually, I seek out the book before watching the movie, but I didn’t in this case. Howl, a tortured wizard with a penchant for snazzy dressing and a weakness for hair dye, was the perfect animated hero. Sophie was also a nuanced heroine with a tinge of sadness so common in Miyazaki films, and Calcifer just cracked me up. I ended up loving the film and I knew I had to read the book.

So I bought a trade paperback copy and settled down to read. A week later, I emerged from my Howl-induced stupor, and I was hooked. Addicted, really. Not just to Howl, but to Jones’s work, and I knew I had to read everything that she had written. So I stocked up my Metrocard, threw on my coat, and returned to the bookstore.

To my dismay, they didn't carry many of her books, and the few that were in print needed to be ordered online (or imported from England). Still, I tracked them down one by one (I'm still not done with my quest, by the way, having yet to read THE OGRE DOWNSTAIRS or HEXWOOD, which I hear are wonderful). But the ones I did find, I hoarded like a hungry dragon. I'd have to stop myself from devouring those books in one sitting. Instead, I would linger over the pages as though seated at a literary feast, chewing on odd turns of phrase or drinking in a particularly apt description.

Still, I’m not that greedy, and I know a good book when I read one, which is why I almost always recommend Jones’s books to readers looking for some unusual fantasy. And the feedback is always spectacular. Even my best friend has gotten hooked on Jones. (We also fight over Howl, whom we both claim as our literary boyfriend, but that's neither here nor there.)

So what makes Jones and her books so great? Here are a few reasons I’ve come up with as I’ve mulled over her work.

1. Jones doesn't talk down to her reader. She writes books for kids and young adults, but that doesn’t mean her stories are simple. She scatters clues throughout the narrative and expects you to piece them together. FIRE AND HEMLOCK is a good example of this; the reader has to figure out why Polly is living a double life and is the target of a sinister family. Another example is POWER OF THREE, where perspective plays a crucial part in interpreting the world. It’s this sense of mystery that moves Jones’s narrative along and keeps the reader turning pages. The stories would lose some of their magic if every twist and turn were spelled out.
2. Twisty plots. Jones is the queen of madcap plots and subplots. For this reason, I consider her a master class in plotting. Her ability to scatter clues and build her story world convinces the reader that her brand of literary insanity is not only possible, but probable. ARCHER’S GOON is a strong example of Jones’s plotting. I started out thinking I was reading one book, but it ended up being a different book entirely. Her DALEMARK QUARTET is another, where seemingly disparate stories weave together to form a colorful literary tapestry.
3. Horrible relations. Almost every Jones protagonist seems to have a horrible family. Usually this lack of family ties is what spurs the protagonists towards independence and fulfilling their magical destinies. Often, the horrible relations are the story’s villains, my favorite being Gwendolen Chant from CHARMED LIFE, who steals her brother’s magic (but still can’t seem to spell properly). Other villains include the parents in TIME OF THE GHOST, whose neglect sets the stage for their daughters’ mischief.
4. More characters than you can shake a stick at. Jones’s characters are more like real people than types. They make mistakes, they behave badly, they grow, they regress, they perform daring acts of heroism, they engage in wanton acts of cowardice, and everything else in between. As far as Jones’s heroes (and heroines), she doesn’t stick with a particular type. Charmaine from HOUSE OF MANY WAYS is a fussy bookworm. Sophie from HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is a bossy old lady. And Cat Chant from CHARMED LIFE is a scared boy on the edge of becoming a powerful wizard. There is someone to like in every Jones book, just as there’s a Jones book for every reader, because…
5. Jones never writes the same story twice. She’s written everything from romances, to high fantasy, to urban fantasy, and many other story types in between. Although her style is signature (from her warm humor to her odd descriptions), her plots are never exactly the same. If one Jones book didn’t quite catch your fancy, there’s probably another out there for you. In fact, if you ask a Jones fan which his or her favorite book is, you’ll probably receive wildly varying answers—an indication of a rich backlist.

So there you have it: the magic and literary mystery of Diana Wynne Jones. Why do you read her books, and what are some of your favorites? Leave a comment below, or Tweet me @sabrinaslibrary.

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Sabrina is a marketing maven by day and fantasy writer by night. When she isn’t buried in a new story, she’s blogging about books and writing at Sabrina’s Library, or Tweeting about all things literary (and often silly) at @sabrinaslibrary.

DWJ March: Guest Post from Karen

In honor of the second annual DWJ March, I've written a guest post for Kristen at We Be Reading. She's posed the question: What makes Diana Wynne Jones magical?

Well, I don't know about everyone else, but the first thing I thought of was how Diana Wynne Jones is one of the brilliant children's authors whose works really stand the test of time. To me, she's just as good as J.K. Rowling. I read my first DWJ book, Dogsbody, years ago when I was in middle school. I probably picked it up because there was a dog on the cover, and even though I didn't get some of the British slang and references until years later, the story completely transported me. If you haven't read it, it's one of her first works, and a fantastic book.

Anyway, in Dogsbody, Sirius, the Dog Star, is not just a star, he's a sort of a celestial body personified. The story begins with Sirius on trial for murder by his peers, and he's sentenced to live a dog's life -- literally -- on Earth, unless he can find a mysterious object called the Zoi. Otherwise, he'll spend the rest of his natural life as a dog, and die here.

Sirius is reborn as a puppy, and is rescued from drowning and found by a lonely girl, Kathleen. Kathleen is Irish and is living an almost Cinderella-like existence with some horrible cousins in England, while her father is serving a prison sentence for his involvement with the IRA. Sirius is renamed Leo and is Kathleen's salvation, and as he grows, he becomes protective and attached to her as he searches for the Zoi. He becomes torn between his love for Kathleen and his desire to find the Zoi and return to his life as a celestial being.

DWJ is just brilliant at bringing characters to life. Kathleen is a sad orphan, but not sickly sweet, and the relatives who've taken her in are pretty horrible, rather like the Dursleys in the Harry Potter series. (Imagine, however, if the main character in Harry Potter never leaves Privet Drive, but is stuck there with a magic dog instead of escaping to the wizarding world of Hogwarts.)

I have an autographed copy of this edition!! Really!!!

It's a great story and I read it over and over as a child. I never could find any more books by Diana Wynne Jones -- back then we didn't have inter-library loan, and the bookstores in my town were pretty lame. I essentially forgot all about Diana Wynne Jones until 2005, when I spotted a copy of Howl's Moving Castle at a bookstore in a Japanese train station when we were stationed there -- I think it was in Kyoto. Every Japanese train station has a bookstore, but the supply of English-language books is pretty limited. I'm sure it was only available because the movie version had just been released, though I never got to see it on the big screen.

Anyway, since then I've read lots more Diana Wynne Jones books, and I've reread Dogsbody several times, which is just as good thirty years later. I'm pleased to see there's a new paperback edition with a brilliant introduction by Neil Gaiman. It's worth buying just for Gaiman's intro, which got me all choked up.

I'm still trying to finish the complete works of Diana Wynne Jones, but one of the nicest things is that I share her books with my own children. My youngest is almost twelve and loves Howl, which just thrills me to bits. To me, any author that you can pass down to a new generation is the definition of magical.

Kristen, thanks again for hosting this wonderful blogging event, and for allowing me to be a guest on your blog!

This is cross-posted on my blog, Books and Chocolate.

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Karen K. is a full-time library assistant living in South Texas who has waaay too many unread books on her shelves. Her favorite authors are Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Emile Zola, and Edith Wharton, and just for fun she'll take a break and read some riveting non-fiction or juvenile fantasy. When she's not telling other people what to read, she likes to knit, bake bundt cakes, watch movies, and hang out reading with her husband and two daughters. Her blog is called Books and Chocolate.

DWJ March: Odds and Ends #3

Need some good reading material today? Something DWJ related? How about one of these posts from fellow fans? I'm so happy to see all of these posts!

Anastasia reviews House of Many Ways, The Merlin Conspiracy and Howl's Moving Castle

Jeanne reviews Archer's Goon

Kai reviews Howl's Moving Castle

Sarah reviews Seeing is Believing

And don't forget to enter our giveaway for a lovely Howl & Sophie necklace. I'm going to be incredibly jealous of whoever wins this one! The giveaway ends on Friday and is open internationally.

Heading off to comment,
K

DWJ March: Reflections on Sunday (3)

As I write this, I'm listening to the first part of the new radio play of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and, well, James McAvoy, right? Swoon. Anyway, this week, I would just like to share a couple of the brilliant quotes I've come across in my reading so far. I'm marking pages with little post-its and it looks like a study guide. I'm learning so much about story structure and writing and, thankfully, Fire and Hemlock.

"I think the reason that the heroic ideal had, as it were, retreated to children's books is that children do, by nature, status, and instinct, live more in the heroic mode than the rest of humanity. The naturally have the right naive, straightforward approach. And in every playground there are actual giants to be overcome and the moral issues are usually clearer than they are, say, in politics."

"Books, like dreams, let you have your experience and reject it too."

"But adults are handicapped by terminal assumptions about what goes with which genre. If they think I am writing, fantasy, then my belligerent witches must go on a quest armed only with swords and spells and either on foot or horseback; and if what I am doing is to be science fiction, no one aboard my starship is allowed magic, but only scientific principles not altogether yet proven, such as an ability to travel faster than light. Does nobody find these unspoken assumptions absurd?"

"A book should conclude satisfactorily; to leave the ending for the next volume is cynical (and annoying for readers)."

Spending time with a master of her art,
K

DWJ March Watch-Along: Howl's Moving Castle (and Giveaway)

I'm very excited for our watch-alongs today of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle! Join me at either

6pm Berlin/5pm London/1pm Eastern/10am Pacific

or

10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific/3pm (Sunday) New Zealand/11am (Sunday) Tokyo

(or both if you want to!) and let's enjoy this beautiful and fun-filled re-imagining of Diana's novel. The discussion will be on Twitter using hashtag #howlalong. (Again, Tweetchat is the easiest tool for keeping up with the discussion.)

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I also have a great giveaway today! One lucky person will get their choice of one of these necklaces from Etsy shop Authored Adornments.

Just leave a comment here and let me know if you would prefer the bronze or silver necklace and a way to contact you if you're the winner. This giveaway is open worldwide and will close next Friday, March 22nd. I'll choose a winner at random.

Getting ready for the show,

K

DWJ March Read-Along: Howl's Moving Castle

Welcome to the Howl's Moving Castle read-along discussion! If you have written your thoughts up on your own site, please share the link in a comment so everyone can come visit.

I thought I would just start the discussion with a few questions. Answer some or all of them -- whatever you feel like doing. I want this to be an easy-going and fun discussion! And, of course, if you have any of your own questions, please add them to the comment string.

1. Was this your first time reading the story or was it a re-read? If it was a re-read, was it better this time (Jenny's Law)?

My answer: I think this was maybe my fourth or fifth time reading Howl. And yes, it was even better this time than any time before. There were more details and character traits that I noticed this time than in my previous readings. I also connected with different characters than in previous readings.

2. What did you think of all of the characters who weren't "themselves" -- Sophie, Howl, Calcifer, the Witch of the Waste, Lettie, Martha, Prince Justin, Wizard Suliman? In fact, which characters, if any, did you think were truly honest? Michael? Fanny? Mrs. Pentstemmon?

My answer: This was the first time that I really thought about this theme. I mean, obviously I thought about Sophie's situation but this might be the first time that I paid attention to this exchange at the end --

"But do you honestly think I don't know my own business well enough not to spot a strong spell like that when I see it? I had several goes at taking it off you when you weren't looking. But nothing seems to work. I took you to Mrs. Pentstemmon, hoping she could do something, but she evidently couldn't. I came to the conclusion that you liked being in disguise."
"Disguise!" Sophie yelled.
Howl laughed at her. "It must be, since you're doing it yourself," he said.

I think there are definitely two sets of disguised characters in the story -- those who want to be something other than what they are and those who only want to be their true selves again.

3. Why does Sophie never really experiment with her powers even after she accepts that she is a witch?

My answer: I have no idea! That was one of the things that really perplexed me this time through. She never tries to do anything specific with her magic except to yell at ferns to become daffodils and even that is pretty random. She never tries to use magic to clean or sew. She will use Calcifer's magic and Michael's spells and Howl's seven-league boots but her own "magic wand" is only used once and that's in a very vague way when she waves it at the WotW's servants. Any other magic that she does is accidental or inadvertent.

4. If the moving castle is the physical embodiment of Howl's "slither-outer"ness, now that he's actually managed to find real love and accomplish a few things, is it time to give up the castle?

My answer: Maybe, but that would be no fun, right?

I'll start with those. Feel free to discuss anything -- Howl's earring, the interchangeability of spells and poetry, the amazing flower garden, the idea of first children having no destiny, what part of yourself you would give a fire demon.

Looking for Howl behind every door,
K

DWJ March: Guest Post from Katharina

What Makes Diana Wynne Jones Magical?

The first book by Diana Wynne Jones I read was Power of Three, and I loved it. I began searching for more of her books. Unfortunately, I am German and only very few of her stories had been translated. Imagine my joy when I discovered how many she wrote when my English was finally good enough to visit my Scottish adoptive family. I came home with a pile of books and have been adding every single one she wrote. I was devastated when I heard she died.

What I admire most of her writing is that –unlike other writers– she never, ever writes the same story twice, not even when they feature the same people. Look at other popular writers out there. J.K. Rowling, as talented as she is in worldbuilding, wrote seven books with nearly the same plot. Although the details of the story line, some characters and the sub-villain changed, it was basically the same story over and over and over. The same goes for Wolfgang Hohlbein (very famous German author). They write with a pattern in mind. I'm not saying that's bad, especially in kid-lit. Children like stories to be the same but different. It's just not the way I, personally, like it. I want fresh ideas to ponder, new worlds to discover and new characters to become friends with. I found all this in Diana Wynne Jones's books. She is the only author where I own and have read every single book but one (I haven't gotten round to reading The Skiver's Guide yet). None of my other favorite authors can match that.

If you like fantasy, if you like fresh content, if you love great prose suitable for children, young adults and adults alike, look no further than Diana Wynne Jones.

Ever since I started writing, she's been my gauge. I always ask myself if my stories would appeal to Diana Wynne Jones' fans, and I very much hope the answer is yes. There is no one I admire more, and my dream is to write stories as fantastical and as alive as hers were. If you want to see if I can, get one of my eBooks (Urchin King, Amadi, the Phoenix, the Sphinx, and the Djinn, Scotland's Guardians) or browse my homepage: www.katharinagerlach.com

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Katharina Gerlach is an agented German author who got tired of waiting for the Big Deal. She is now self-publishing her twisty YA stories as eBooks and printed books in English and German. Her favorite genres are fantasy and historical novels, more often than not with a dash of romance.

DWJ March: Guest Post from Kim

A Witchy and Wonderful Woman

What makes Diana Wynne Jones so magical? What keeps me coming back to her books for multiple rereads? Yes, her crazy complicated plots. Yes, her vivid characters. Yes, her fantastic imagination. But how about her wicked, wicked sense of humour?

DWJ has a sense of the absurdity of life that colors everything she writes and says. At the back of the 2007 Harper Collins paperback of Charmed Life is a fascinating little interview with the author—it’s worth finding. She describes writing the first chapter of Charmed Life “on paper covered with muddy paw prints and with a pen that bent and spread and splattered” in a “newly built house that had everything possible wrong with it”: “My writing of the book kept being interrupted by such things as water pouring in around the light fitments, the loos flushing boiling water and huge cracks appearing in the beams that supported the second floor.” You or I might find such circumstances frustrating or disheartening: DWJ turns them into a story.

The people who knew her say she was a lovely, warm, funny woman. Neil Gaiman called her “the funniest, wisest, fiercest, sharpest person I've known, a witchy and wonderful woman” (in this blog post, which you should read.) The humour in her books bears out this description: she can be silly—think of Chrestomanci’s dressing gowns, or Sophie and her hats—she uses slapstick—like the Willing Warlock and the invisible dog in Mixed Magics—her magic can be so weird and unexpected and just plain fun—The Ogre Downstairs is full of great examples—but she can also be scathingly satirical. Notice that her villains are terrified of being made ridiculous, while her heroes learn to be perfectly comfortable with oddity and goofiness.

One of her funniest books is less well-known, but it’s of my favourites: The Dark Lord of Derkholm. It is a spoof of well-trodden fantasy tropes and a satirical skewering of tourists in search of “authentic” experiences. It’s also a fun adventure, a suspenseful mystery, a coming-of-age story and a family drama. Mild-mannered wizard Derk, who loves nothing better than to tinker with genetics—half of his children are griffins—is chosen to be this year’s Dark Lord for Mr. Chesney’s Pilgrim Parties, who have paid to get the complete fantasy experience on their Grand Tour of Derkholm. Derk’s son Blade is chosen to be Wizard Guide, even though Blade is too young and inexperienced. Things get wildly out of hand; everything goes seriously wrong; love, loyalty and logistics are tested to the breaking point. There are so many levels to the humour I find myself grinning foolishly and barking out into laughter at inopportune times whenever I read it. I wish I could quote from it, but I’ve lent my copy out and my library doesn’t have one, so you’re just going to have to read it for yourself!

I also love the sequel, The Year of the Griffin, which skewers higher education and has some really hilarious assassination attempts.

I think a person with a sense of humour is a person with perspective and humility, someone who can be kind and tolerant with human foibles but doesn’t put up with hypocrisy or pomposity. I think every one of DWJ’s books exemplifies this outlook on life. If we get to meet our heroes when we die, I hope I meet Diana Wynne Jones.

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Kim Aippersbach is a writer, an editor, a mother of three. She is hopelessly addicted to reading. She thinks Vancouver is the best place in the world to live, except when it rains. Her blog is called Dead Houseplants, www.kaippersbach.blogspot.com, but no plants were harmed in the writing of it.

DWJ March: Odds and Ends #2

There are a couple more posts that I wanted to make sure you all got to see.

Bahnree has written What I Owe to Diana Wynne Jones on her blog, Bahnreads. It's a thoughtful tribute post to our favorite author. Beware though, you may be a bit teary by the end.

Anastasia of Birdbrain(ed) has posted a review of Hexwood. It's one of the few DWJ books that I haven't read yet but I have a feeling that will change sooner than later (I didn't know it has time travel!).

And don't forget that we will begin the Howl's Moving Castle read-along discussion on Friday and the watch-along on Saturday at two different times:

6pm Berlin/5pm London/1pm Eastern/10am Pacific

and

10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific/3pm (Sunday) New Zealand/11am (Sunday) Tokyo

The best way to chat during the movie is with TweetChat. Just sign in with your Twitter account and enter hashtag #howlalong. It will add the hashtag automatically to any posts you write so that you won't have to do it manually and it gives you a stream of all #howlalong posts.

Doing some party prep,

K

DWJ March: Reflections on Sunday (2)

What really stood out in this week's reading for me were Diana's pieces on Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings series and C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books. It's amazing that she was able to take classes from both of these geniuses while she was at Oxford. The Tolkien piece is more extensive and would be of most interest to those who have read the series. The C.S. Lewis one is more of a brief reflection on the man and his stories. In both, we get her opinions about the men and about their stories. It's always fascinating to see what an author loves, appreciates or even hates in another's stories.

If you could take a literature course from any living author, who would it be?

Obviously Neil Gaiman would be a good choice. He's wonderful at crafting a variety of tales, all of which are unique in tone and style. He's also a very clear communicator. It sounds as if the opposite was true of Tolkien but Diana stayed in his class anyway to catch those fleeting glimpses of his genius that he didn't mutter into the chalkboard. Carlos Ruiz Zafón is another one that I would love to learn from. He's also a very entertaining speaker (as it seems C.S. Lewis was) and has a flair for setting and long, complex story lines. I'm sure the longer I think, the more authors I could add to this list. I'll stop now and get back to Reflections instead where I can learn from Diana herself.

Contemplating the perfect literary education,
K

DWJ March: Review of Spellbound

It turns out that the first book I finished for Diana Wynne Jones Month wasn't even written by her except for one short story at the end. It was Spellbound, a selection of fantasy tales "chosen by Diana" that I picked up at Half Price Books a couple of years ago simply because her name was on it. With eighteen short stories or excerpts of books from Rudyard Kipling, Eva Ibbotson, L. Frank Baum, E. Nesbit, Tove Janssen, Patricia C. Wrede, Joan Aiken and more, these stories were apparently chosen by Diana as the best of fantasy (in her opinion, of course). Unfortunately, there is no foreword or afterword talking about why she chose these particular stories, although one gets the gist of it after a while. As you read, you start seeing echoes of Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky and The Ogre Downstairs and Witch's Business and so many more of her stories and you realize that Diana's broad selection of fantasy tales were all written because they were subjects and ideas that she loved. Diana's story in this collection, "What the Cat Told Me" seems to bear the seeds of Earwig and the Witch and I loved it.

I didn't think there was a dud in the bunch (well, maybe that one based on Spenser's The Faerie Queene) except for the poor production quality of the book. It has a gorgeous cover and nice paper and, well, extra sentences and also some missing ones. For some reason, in more than one place in the book, one or two sentences are repeated. It's confusing the first time it happens and annoying the next few times. As for the missing paragraph or possibly page, that was really unfortunate. If this book had better editing and an informative foreword, I would recommend it unreservedly. My TBR has once again grown by leaps and bounds. I finally found out who the Moomins are, I immediately wanted to re-read The Silver Chair, I decided on Which Witch? for Z and my RIP read-aloud this year and I've lamented never reading Five Children and It.

There is one personal statement from Diana at the start of the excerpt from The Seven Towers by Patricia C. Wrede --

I know it is annoying to be given only the start of a story, but it is a long book and I did want to introduce you to my favorite sorceress. Here she is at her most typical.

If that isn't reason enough to pick up Wrede's book immediately, I don't know what is.

So, if you want an insight into Diana's taste in fantasy (though you likely already know it from her own work) and don't mind some wonky editing, see if you can find a copy of this book.

Learning more from my favorite witch,
K

DWJ March: Guest Post from Jean

I can remember the first DWJ book I read--in 6th grade--and even exactly where it lived on the shelf at my school's library. It was Witch's Business, DWJ's first published children's book from 1973, and the school copy had a dusty purple cloth cover. It's not one of her best books (though when I re-read it last year I was surprised to realize how good it actually is) but even so it must have made quite an impression on me.  I don't have that kind of memory for any other books from school.

In junior high the public library had a few more DWJ titles. I remember reading Howl's Moving Castle, Witch Week, and The Magicians of Caprona (which had an amazingly ugly cover even for a DWJ book). I must have continued to read whatever I could get my hands on, because by college I was a confirmed DWJ addict. This was the early 1990s, so she was publishing pretty often, though she was not well-known.  Living in Berkeley was great--I found paperbacks of obscure older titles like Spellcoats at used bookstores, checked out Archer's Goon from the public library, and spent a lot of time at Dark Carnival (a SF/fantasy bookstore), waiting for new releases to come out in paperback so I could afford to buy them.

When my husband and I got married in 1996, we had the chance to take a trip to England. On the day that we visited Oxford, I made sure to go into Blackwell's to check out their famous children's section, and I got to add to my collection with Time of the Ghost and my very own copies of a couple others. Ever since then, I've bought every title as it has come out, and now we have everything but Changeover (DWJ's very first novel, not written for children, and not at all easy to get). That might be a long and boring way of saying that I'm one of the people lucky enough to have grown up reading DWJ, and she has had a big influence on me. Her words live in my head.

DWJ is great in a lot of ways, as we all know. Her stories are original and never derivative, while at the same time she mines legend and literature to bring in layers of meaning, theme, and allusion. I love what she said about how her mind worked:

...what I wanted to do was to write fantasy that might resonate on all levels, from the deep hidden ones, to the most mundane and everyday....get in touch with all the hidden, mythical, archetypal things that were lurking down there. Over the years I’ve grown to trust this primordial sludge at the bottom of my mind.

DWJ stories are tricky; you start off thinking this is going to be a children's fantasy story, not even a very difficult one, and then wham--it goes all complicated and she hits you with ideas about how the universe works and what people are like. She manages to pack a lot of ideas and insights into stories meant to be read by 11-year-olds, and she does it with simple language and without making a big song and dance about it at all; instead she's just wryly humorous about it. AND she does this with an intelligence that most of us don't have; she didn't show it off, but she was sharp. Sometimes you hardly even notice what she's doing until the 3rd time around, because she never hangs a big flashy sign on it to say "Look what I'm pulling off here!  See how smart I am?" I always enjoy how she makes you work, though. DWJ doesn't lay the whole story out for you to read and then forget about; she leaves things confusing or unsaid. Half of her endings are incomprehensible until you've read the book several times--and maybe not even then.

Her characters are people, too. They are all definite personalities; indeed many of them have uncomfortable amounts of personality and would take up a lot of psychic space if you were in the same room with them. They jump off the page. There is never any trouble about telling characters apart in a DWJ book.

I'm running out of space but I would like to burble a bit about which stories are my favorite. Fire and Hemlock comes in first. I know the Dalemark quartet isn't all that well-known, but it should be; she tells 3 different stories about a world and then braids them all together in the 4th, and it's amazing. The Crown of Dalemark is right up there next to Fire and Hemlock for me. Archer's Goon is so funny and fantastic that I must have read it 20 times by now. And Hexwood is creepy and bizarre and incomprehensible so I love it.

I have two daughters now and the oldest one is 12. She loves DWJ too and now we get to share in-jokes, which is super-awesome, because we can just quote a line or reference a character and each knows what the other means. She hasn't read all of them yet--I keep advising her to savor them one at a time, because there are a limited number of them--but she is well on her way. My younger daughter is not quite 10 and picky about her reading; if she is not completely convinced that she will love a book--and it is not easy to convince her--she won't read it. She has read Earwig and the Witch, and she loves the Howl's Moving Castle MOVIE, but otherwise she has not yet chosen to read much. We're getting there.

I have never managed to properly say what DWJ books have been in my life. I always wanted to write her a fan letter, but I could never think of the words. When she was very ill indeed, Meredith who runs the website asked for letters, and I tried, but "it went small and boring and didn't lead anywhere." I sent it off anyway of course, but I'm not a writer and what DWJ's books have meant to me will have to stay mostly in my head.

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Jean is a classically homeschooling mom of two girls and a reference librarian at a CC (very part-time). She lives in rural Northern CA and went to Berkeley and San Jose State. She sews and embroiders and loves Bollywood movies. She blogs at Howling Frog Books.