Showing results by author "Diana Wynne Jones" in All Categories

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and ALA Notable and Best of the Year in Young Adult Fiction, Howl's Moving Castle is by acclaimed fantasy writer Diane Wynne Jones and was transformed into an Academy Award nominated animated motion picture by Hayao Miyazaki. On a rare venture out from her step-mother's hat shop, Sophie attracts the attention of a witch, who casts a terrible spell transforming the young girl into an old crone.

In this sparkling tale, young merchant Abdullah purchases a magic carpet - and soon finds that the enchanted rug is none too agreeable. But despite the carpet's cranky demeanor, Abdullah must rely on its help to rescue a princess from a wicked djinn.

A girl named Charmain must inhabit her ailing great-uncle's time-traveling home full of magical belongings. As Charmain begins a journey of amazing discoveries, she comes to the attention of the powerful sorceress Sophie and an elusive wizard named Howl.

It is eight years after the tours from offworld have stopped. High Chancellor Querida has retired, leaving Wizard Corkoran in charge of the Wizards' University. Although Wizard Corkoran's obsession is to be the first man on the moon and most of his time is devoted to this project, he decides he will teach the new first-years himself in hopes of currying the favor of the new students' families - for surely they must all come from wealthy, important families - and obtaining money for the university (which it so desperately needs)....

From the Chrestomanci series comes book number three, The Magicians of Caprona. For years, the Montana family has feuded with the Petrocchi family. But Tonino Montana must seek help from the Petrocchis, and a special cat, to save the city of Caprona and prove he deserves to live among the spell-makers.

The students in class 6B become nervous when their teacher receives an anonymous note claiming someone in the room is a witch. For in this society, witches are outlawed, whether they are good or bad. In fact, witches are burned at the stake, because that's the law.

Conrad's Fate is part of the clever and humorous Chrestomanci series. Twelve-year-old Conrad Tesdinic is in disguise as a servant-in-training at Stallery Mansion in the town of Stallchester. He wants to figure out what evil he caused in a past life. He and his friend Christopher Chant are trying to repair Conrad's very bad karma and to discover what mysterious entity is haunting the town.

Mr. Chesney operates Pilgrim Parties, a tour group that takes paying participants into an outer realm where the inhabitants play frightening and foreboding roles. The time has come to end the staged madness...but can it really be stopped?

The mysterious Stalkers show up at almost the same instant 12-year-old Aiden Cain’s grandmother dies. Following his grandmother’s instructions, Aiden decides to seek out a powerful sorcerer at Melstone House. Yet when he arrives, he discovers the man died a year earlier. Melstone House now belongs to the sorcerer’s adult grandson Andrew, who agrees to help Aiden with the Stalker problem.

Christopher Chant has no real power. He can't perform spells or do anything magical. However, he does possess something that most humans do not. Christopher has nine lives. Gerard Doyle's spellbinding narration is sure to capture every listener's attention.

The Pinhoes don't want the Chrestomanci to find out that they've been misusing their magic, but when Cat finds a mysterious old egg at Gammer's place, the Chrestomanci is sure to notice. Author Diana Wynne Jones has won the prestigious Guardian and Mythopoeic Awards. The Pinhoe Egg, the fifth book in her popular Chrestomanci series, brings back Cat Chant.

Cat doesn't mind living in the shadow of his sister, Gwendolen, the most promising young witch ever seen on Coven Street. But trouble starts brewing the moment the two orphans are summoned to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Frustrated that the witches of the castle refuse to acknowledge her talents, Gwendolen conjures up a scheme that could throw whole worlds out of whack.

In Earwig and the Witch, listeners meet Earwig, who is not your typical orphan by any stretch. Unlike most, she loves it at St. Morwald’s Home for Children, where she knows everyone and usually gets her way. So when Earwig gets adopted by a strange woman named Bella Yaga, she wants no part of it - especially after she finds out Bella is an evil witch. Now Earwig will have to use all of her considerable wit and charm (and the help of a talking cat) to get out of this mess and back home safely.

Far to the south in the Land of Ingary lives a young carpet merchant called Abdullah. In his dreams, he is the long-lost son of a great prince. This dream is a complete castle in the air...or is it? Abdullah’s day-dreams suddenly start to come true when he meets the exquisite Flower-in-the-Night, daughter of the ferocious Sultan of Zanzib. Fate has destined them for each other, but a bad-tempered genie, a hideous djinn and various villainous bandits have their own ideas. When Flower-in-the-Night is carried off, Abdullah is determined to rescue her—if he can find her.

In the land of Ingary, where seven league boots and cloaks of invisibility do exist, Sophie Hatter catches the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste and is put under a spell. Deciding she has nothing more to lose, she makes her way to the moving castle that hovers on the hills above Market Chipping. But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl, whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the souls of young girls....

Polly has two sets of memories.... One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was 10 and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. And then she did something terrible, and everything changed. But what did she do? Why can't she remember? Polly must uncover the secret, or her true love - and perhaps Polly herself - will be lost.

For centuries, Dalemark has been a land divided by the warring earldoms of the North and South. Now, with the help of the Undying, the mysterious gods of Dalemark, four extraordinary young people must join forces to reunify their beloved land.

Charmain Baker is in over her head. Looking after Great Uncle William's tiny cottage while he's ill should have been easy, but Great Uncle William is better known as the Royal Wizard Norland and his house bends space and time. Its single door leads to any number of places—the bedrooms, the kitchen, the caves under the mountains, the past, to name but a few. By opening that door, Charmain is now also looking after an extremely magical stray dog, a muddled young apprentice wizard and a box of the king's most treasured documents, as well as irritating a clan of small blue creatures.

A fantasy adventure about saving the universe one world at a time from Diana Wynne Jones. The companion novel to the bestselling The Merlin Conspiracy.Magids look after all worlds, steer them towards magic, and keep history happening. But Rupert Venables’ mentor has just died, and as the junior magid on earth he has to find a replacement while also trying to find the lost heir of a collapsing empire, worlds away.

Conrad is young, good at heart, and yet is apparently suffering from the effects of such bad karma that there is nothing in his future but terrible things. Unless he can alter his circumstances – well, quite frankly, he is DOOMED. Conrad is sent in disguise to Stallery Mansion, to infiltrate the magical fortress that has power over the whole town of Stallchester, and to discover the identity of the person who is affecting his Fate so badly. Then he has to kill that person. But can any plan really be that simple and straightforward?