Diana Wynne Jones

I read The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life as a child, loved them, and then lost track of the author. Re-discovering Diana Wynne Jones as an adult has been a delight. While I find the Chrestomanci books just as charming now as I did when I was a kid, her more recent books feature a darker type of fantasy--particularly Fire and Hemlock, which is loosely based on the Tam Lin story and more than suggests a romance between a teenage girl and an adult man. It’s tricky stuff, but Jones handles it beautifully.

Note: Jones’s story Hexwood (an unusual mixture of science fiction and Arthurian myth) is dedicated to comic book god Neil Gaiman. Apparently he was so pleased he wrote a poem about it.



Aftertaste:
None.

Availability:
Everywhere.

Other Recommendations:
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

The Sandman series and Coraline, by Neil Gaiman

Anything by Robin McKinley

Summerland, by Michael Chabon

Sorcery and Cecelia, by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede

Website:
http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/ -