Reading: Diana Wynne Jones 'Enchanted Glass'

[mkcs]

Every time I think Diana Wynne Jones has stopped writing her best books and is down to just very good YA and kids' fantasy books, she surprises me again.

I remember reading 'Eight Days of Luke' when I was a child and it's stayed with me ever since. I still don't know that she's written anything better, but 'Enchanted Glass' is right up on that sort

Comments

[jofish22]

I was just reading some of her young witch series this week. I'd forgotten how dark they get. Great.

[mkcs]

People have this weird idea that books for children and young adults are all sweetness and fluffy bunnies. I don't think they can have read the same things I did in them, or that fluffy bunnies is what kids are after. I was usually after things that would help me make sense of how I was feeling, or even help me put my own troubles into perspective.

'The Ill-made Knight' and 'The Queen of Air and Darkness' have the best descriptions of low self-esteem *ever*.

'The Wind in the Willows' has that incredible scene of coming home to find your home has been taken over by strangers).

Jones tends to seriously neglectful and verbally abusive families, mostly, but she does it so well, and her characters cope with it so believably, that it's brilliant.