Witch Week (Chrestomanci, Book 3)

A hidden gem written four years before her most celebrated work (Howl’s Moving Castle), Diana Wynne Jones’s Witch Week is the perfect blend of boarding-school drama, parallel-world fantasy and characterisation by a master at the peak of her powers.

In a world where witchcraft is a crime punishable by death, Larwood House fills a sad necessity – the education of witch orphans. The strictly regimented curriculum, which includes mandatory journalling, is designed to produce compliant, obedient children, but everything begins to unravel when an anonymous note appears: ‘SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH’.

Through journal entries and multiple points of view, we watch as the school devolves into suspiciously magical behaviour, pranks and puritanical finger-pointing. Set over the last four days of October 1981, Witch Week is a reminder that we’re never as strange, as alone, or as unredeemable as we feel, and that, in fact, the things that make us feel different are often what others find most fascinating and admirable.

A timeless example of why this student of both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, a mother who was frustrated with the poor fare available for her children, a mentor and an icon in the fantasy community, is more than overdue for a re-read. For ages 10+.