Once and Future

Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones. Illustrated by Paul Hess. HarperCollins Children’s Books 2000 (1984). Written and published during the Reagan-Thatcher years, when it felt as though some of the world at least was taking a dangerous lurch towards an confrontational and authoritarian triumphalism, Archer’s Goon explores some of that state of affairs in what …

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Comment on Unbound by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2025/03/09/unbound/#comment-71277">kaggsysbookishramblings</a>. It's one of her darkest fantasies, I think – unsettling, yes, but also one with the bleakest ending. The possible Borges link leapt out at me but I wouldn't dare to push it too far!

Comment on Unbound by kaggsysbookishramblings

Fascinating post, Chris. It's literally decades since I read this and so I wouldn't have made the Borges connection. But I remember being quite unsettled by this book and it's obviously one to go back to.

Unbound

The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones.Illustrated by David Wyatt.HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2000 (1981). “Are you one? Do you call us Homeward Bounders too?” “That is the name to all of us is given,” he said to me sadly. “Oh,” I said. “I thought I’d made it up.” Jamie Hamilton is twelve going on thirteen, …

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Comment on Unputdownable by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/chance/#comment-33804">Ola G</a>. Just seen this comment, Ola, sorry for not replying before now! Yes, the acid test depends on how strong one's particular acid is . . .

Comment on Life in the realms of death by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2025/03/08/ghost/#comment-71274">Laura</a>. Yes, deeply unsettling is how it affected me too when I first read it, Laura! It definitely needed a second read (and a bit more knowledge about what inspired it) for me to appreciate some of its nuances. I was also interested to read Rhiannon Lassiter's <i>Ghost of a Chance</i> a dozen years ago as she dealt with a somewhat similar concept: https://wp.me/s2oNj1-chance

Comment on Life in the realms of death by Laura

I've read this, but I'd completely forgotten about it until now. I remember nothing about it other than it being deeply unsettling.

Comment on Life in the realms of death by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2025/03/08/ghost/#comment-71272">Gita Ralleigh</a>. It really is compelling and, for all that it's clearly fantasy, has the ring of truth – I believe DWJ toned down the weirdness of family life she drew on for this story in order for the fantasy to be more credible!

Comment on Life in the realms of death by Gita Ralleigh

Such a compelling story of sisterhood, magic and haunting - one of my favourite DWJs!

Life in the realms of death

The Time of the Ghostby Diana Wynne Jones,illustrated by David Wyatt.HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2001 (1981). ‘Corn yellow and running, came past me just now, the one bearing within her the power to give life in the realms of death.’ As with so many of Diana Wynne Jones’s fantasies she weaves in so many strands – …

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Good things come in threes

Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones.Harper Trophy, 2003 (1976). Another wonderful offering from the inimitable Diana Wynne Jones, Power of Three is an early-ish fantasy but one which displays all her trademark tics: a tricksy plot with an ending which has you rereading the last few pages wondering what has just happened (and how), …

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As above, so below

Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. Collins, 2000 (1975). In Diana Wynne Jones’s novel Sirius – the name in Greek means ‘scorcher’ – is the so-called ‘luminary’ of Alpha Canis Majoris, the brightest star of the constellation Canis Major. Known as the Dog Star it’s the principal body in a binary star system, its companion being …

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Beware geeks bearing gifts

The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones.Harper Collins Children’s Books, 2010 (1974). Caspar, Johnny, and Gwinny’s mother Sally remarries, creating a state of affairs made especially fraught when their new stepfather Jack is both taciturn and strict. But the two stepbrothers – Malcolm and Douglas – help turn sibling rivalry into all-out conflict, compounded by …

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Comment on “It isn’t fair!” by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2025/03/01/wilkins/#comment-71270">kaggsysbookishramblings</a>. Thanks, Karen. As a debut children's fantasy this I think was remarkable for the range of subtle literary influences, hopefully some of which may have nudged those early readers' memories!

Comment on “It isn’t fair!” by kaggsysbookishramblings

My word, she was brimming with ideas - and thanks for exploring them so thoroughly here!

“It isn’t fair!”

Wilkins’ Tooth by Diana Wynne Jones.Collins Voyager, 2002 (1973),published 1974 as Witch’s Business in the USA. Is it possible for there to be too many ideas in a novel? Especially in a children’s story of barely two hundred pages? In Diana Wynne Jones’ very first children’s novel images and themes and borrowings and emotions all …

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Comment on Walled in or out? by Calmgrove

In reply to <a href="https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2025/02/26/offroad/#comment-71268">Jean @ Howling Frog</a>. Each one of her novels for younger readers that I've read have been very different, though all have some darkness in them, and this one doesn't depart from that principle. Hope you get to read it!

Walled in or out?

Off the Road by Nina Bawden.Puffin Books, 2000 (1998). It is the near future – 12th June 2040, to be precise. Britain is divided, east and west: the civilised part, the Urbs, is separated from the barbarians in the west by a wall. Young Tom, an only child, is accompanying his parents and his grandfather …

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Carnival in Belezza

City of Masks by Mary Hoffman.Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003 (2002). Teenager Lucien, seriously ill with cancer, is able with the help of an old notebook to become one of the stravaganti, time-travellers to a parallel Renaissance Italy called Talia, and finds himself in the city of Bellezza, a version of Venice. It’s the feast of carnival …

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Starling taught to speak

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson.Macmillan Children’s Books, 2015 (1993). I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak … — Shakespeare Henry IV Part 1 Here is a publishing curiosity. The Morning Gift was originally written in the 1990s for an adult readership but then, to the author’s surprise, reissued as a teen read …

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