| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Low Violence level: Low Back Cover: “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, and the Royal Mansion, to name just a few. By opening that door, Charmain has become responsible for not only the house, but for an extremely magical stray dog, a muddled young apprentice wizard, and a box of the king's most treasured documents. She has encountered a terrifying beast called a lubbock, irritated a clan of small blue creatures, and wound up smack in the middle of an urgent search. The king and his daughter are desperate to find the lost, fabled Elfgift—so desperate that they've even called in an intimidating sorceress named Sophie to help. And where Sophie is, can the Wizard Howl and the fire demon Calcifer be far behind? Of course, with that magical family involved, there's bound to be chaos—and unexpected revelations. No one will be more surprised than Charmain by what Howl and Sophie discover.” |
One of the things I love most about these books is, oddly enough, the chapter headings. They don't really give you much of an idea of what happens in the story, in spite of being the descriptive sort of chapter headings. You know, like “In which our heroes discover the missing heir to the throne.” That sort of thing, but in this case it's things more like “In which Charmain kneels on a cake.” And the great thing is that after you've read it, all you have to do is glance down the table of contents to be reminded of all the funny parts and start laughing again.
Oh, the funny parts. You know you ought to expect this kind of thing from Diana Wynne Jones, of course. And it always helps to have someone with the same kind of magical power as Sophie (which is to say, she does magic by giving inanimate objects a good talking to). Sophie does a bit of it in this book, but you get more from Charmain, much more amusingly since she's still just learning and her mistakes can be fantastic. There's a lot of wonderful absurdity in the House and the way it works. Also with the Kobolds, who seem to have become convinced that hydrangeas ought to be blue and no other color. This leads to a demonstration of the profound truth that dirty dishes and laundry will multiply if left on their own. Everyone knows that.
But altogether, I have to say that my very favorite character is the child Twinkle, and I won't spoil it for you by telling you anything more, except that Sophie gets very upset with him when he arrives, and is thoroughly disgusted that he's such a very pretty-looking child.