Howl's Moving Castle

Diana Wynne Jones

Baker & Taylor, CATS, Jul 10, 2009 - Fantasy - 329 pages

In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter.After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls.The Hatter sisters--Sophie, Lettie, and Martha--and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning.In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle?Diana Wynne Jones's entrancing fantasy is filled with surprises at every turn, but when the final stormy duel between the Witch and the Wizard is finished, all the pieces fall magically into place.

About the author

Diana Wynne Jones was born in London in 1934. She grew up amidst the destruction of World War II, and as a result her family moved around a lot as she was growing up, before finally settling in Essex. Not being able to get many books, Jones and her sister made up their own stories, and though Jones was dyslexic, she wrote down her stories anyway. Between the ages of 12 and 14 she filled more than twenty notebooks with two stories. In 1953, Jones began school at St. Anne's College Oxford and attended lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. After graduation, Jones continued to write, creating plays for children that were performed at the London Arts Theatre. Her first book was published in 1973, and in 1977, her book Charmed Life won the Guardian Award for Children's Books. She was twice runner up for the Carnegie Medal and in 1999 won the Mythopeic Award and the Karl Edward Wagner Award.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Howl's Moving Castle
• Author: Diana Wynne Jones
• Publisher: Baker & Taylor, CATS, 2009
• ISBN: 1442032677, 9781442032675
• Length: 329 pages