Review: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

  Title: Howl’s Moving Castle [Amazon|GoodReads]
  Author: Diana Wynne Jones [Website|Facebook]
  Standing: First in the Castle trilogy, can be read as a stand alone.
  Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy
  Published: April 22nd, 2008 by Eos (first published April 14th, 1986).
  Format: Paperback; 429 pages.
  Source: Borrowed from my local library.

Sophie Hatter is certain she is doomed to a boring life.  As the eldest child, she is bound to fail while her younger sisters go on to happiness.  This inevitability seems to come to fruition when their father dies.  Lettie, her middle sister is sent to apprentice at the town’s bakery where she is likely to catch a fine husband, and Martha, the youngest, is sent to Mrs. Fairfax to apprentice the witch and learn her spells and power.  Sophie, fatefully enough, is stuck managing the family hat shop with her step-mother.  Resigned to her woeful inheritance, Sophie breaths life into her work, creating hats of beauty that bring in business from all corners.  Intrigued in her skills, The Witch of the Waste pays a visit to the shop, where she ends up cursing Sophie with old age, while ensuring that she won’t be able to tell a soul.  Sophie determines that there’s little point in staying around, and decides to strike out and seek her fortune.  As her fortune would have it, she ends up at Howl’s door.

This book.  I loved this book.  It was so much fun, full of fantasy and wonder, I honestly don’t have a bad word to say about it.  This is the kind of book that makes me cry over not having read it as a child, and I want to push it into the hands of anyone and everyone I know who loves middle grade and fantasy, no matter their age.  Diana Wynne Jones’s writing is so very whimsical and smart.  I love middle grade authors that are so utterly intelligent.  I feel like too many times the age group gets written down to, but not in this case.  In fact, the characters in Howl’s Moving Castle aren’t even middle grade themselves!  Sophie is eighteen (or about 90, respectively), Howl is in his 20s; in my mind Howl’s Moving Castle brilliantly includes characters of all ages, managing to write them faithfully to their differences and similarities. 

Sophie is timid, and lacks confidence as a young woman, but almost instantly upon becoming 90, she sheds the uncertainties and delicacies of youth.  She doesn’t have to be self-conscious of the things a teenager does, and so Sophie allows herself to be the hardened, nosey, insistent woman she really is.  I love it.  I love that Sophie is constantly doing things she knows will upset Howl, but she never lies about them when he confronts her, she just owns up.  Howl, of course, is a wonderful character.  What he appears to be on the surface, and what he really is underneath don’t quite line up, but yet he manages to be completely himself at all times.  They’re both rather saucy really.

The other characters in the castle, Michael and Calcifer, are equally wonderful.  Michael is the 15 year old apprentice boy, and Calcifer is the fire-demon who helps to power Howl’s moving castle.  Calcifer entreats Sophie to stay (and she very much wants to, because honestly, where else would she go?) and break the contract locking him and Howl together.  Michael, obviously annoyed with Sophie initially, quickly softens and begins to take to her.  So many of the characters in this book seem to have such large hearts, despite their appearances (and possibly their intentions). 

The story of Howl’s Moving Castle is full of magic, whimsy, and spectacle.  I loved that while the story stayed strictly tacked on to Sophie, it was very clear that everyone else was having marvelous adventures as well.  I find it enchanting that we get to know this, to glimpse these other stories, without really being privy to the details.  Also, I found Howl’s Moving Castle to be pleasantly unpredictable.  I was never sure quite which way the story was going, and I loved that Sophie and the others seemed to figure things out before I did.  I hate always being the first to know!  I really couldn’t recommend Howl’s Moving Castle more, and I’m certain I’ll be reading it again in years to come.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more:  Even though Howl’s Moving Castle can be read as a standalone, I already can’t wait to read more stories from Ingary.  I’ll be picking up Castle in the Air next time I pillage the tween stacks.

Recommended for: Anyone who loves MG, fantasy readers, people who enjoy whimsy and hats.

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  While I absolutely adore the movie Spirited Away, and really liked both Ponyo and Princess Mononoke, I’ve never actually watched Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.  Consider that remedied as soon as I finished this book!  I also haven’t seen Castle in the Sky, which apparently has nothing to do with Castle in the Air despite the similarities…will have to check it out as well.

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Review: How to Make a Golem and Terrify People by Alette J. Willis

Title: How to Make a Golem and Terrify People [Amazon|GoodReads]
Author: Alette J. Willis [Website|Twitter|Facebook]
Standing: Stand alone novel.
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Published: January 23rd, 2012 by Floris Books (Originally published in the UK, November 17th, 2011).
Format: Kindle edition.  
Source: ARC from publisher via NetGalley.
Challenge: YA/MG Fantasy Challenge

It’s easier to believe in things after dark.

Edda the Mouse is turning thirteen, and her greatest birthday wish is to shed her demeaning nickname and become Edda the Brave.  This is hard when she’s moved around so often she’s constantly the new girl, ruthlessly picked on by Euan, and worst of all, her family’s house is broken into and robbed while her and her parents are out for her birthday dinner.  Edda loses her presents, her stereo, but more than that she loses her sense of safety in her own home.  When she meets the new kid at school, Michael Scot, he seems to present the opportunity Edda is looking for--a way to lose her fear.  But could Michael Scot’s plan to make a golem to protect Edda and her home be real?

I first heard about the wizard/alchemist Michael Scot when I recently read The Thirteen Hallows.  I didn’t love that book, but my favorite aspect of it was the folklore it presented, and Michael Scot was one of the people mentioned that I spent some time reading about.  Thus, when I saw How to Make a Golem and Terrify People with its adorable cover and synopsis mentioning the famed alchemist himself, I knew I had to read it.

How to Make a Golem and Terrify People was a heartwarming book that presented some very real issues--dealing with fear, bullying, personal safety in one’s home--in a magical way.  Losing one’s sense of safety at home is such an invasion, and this book reflected it well in both Edda and her mother’s strong reactions to the act.  Edda wants to feel safe again, but she also doesn’t want to abandon the place that for the first time in her life is beginning to feel like home.  For the first time Edda has a best friend, and even though she is picked on by the bully, Euan, she wants to stay.  Everybody tells Edda she has to face her fears and stand up to Euan, but she just can’t, and if she can’t stand up for herself to a boy in her class how is she supposed to confront her fear of the burglars that ravaged her home?  Her encounter with Michael Scot presents a timely and in/appropriate solution to her problems by offering Edda the chance to become Edda the Brave in various ways.

This book was more complex than I expected, and though some of the characterizations were a little cliche (like Euan the bullied bully), I didn’t feel like this weakened the story.  In fact, to me, the climax was unpredictable, and much more fun than I would have thought possible, though I did feel the story could have been wrapped up a bit faster in the end.  I very much enjoyed experiencing Edda’s transformation from Edda the Mouse into Edda the Brave, and loved to see the changes and developments of the other characters throughout the story as well.  I did feel that Edda read younger than 13, but she herself admitted she was small and timid in a way that might make her seem younger than she was.  This seemed more appropriate as Lucy and Euan were both believable 13 year olds.  Besides which, they’re Scottish!  Who doesn’t smile and think adorable thoughts at little Scottish kids mucking about?

In the end, I felt How to Make a Golem and Terrify People was a charming story about the power of friendship and self-worth, and I very much enjoyed watching Edda learn and grow in her quest to defeat fear.  This book proclaims that ever-true montra: be careful what you wish for.

“The first thing you need to do, if you want your wish to come true, is to say it as though you mean it.”  He opened his book and started reading again.

“Fine,” I said, to the messy-haired top of the pompous twit’s head.  “I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time.”

“Good,” he said, looking up.  

“What’s the second thing?”  I asked.

“You have to say it in front of someone who can answer your wish.”  He smiled like he knew something funny but wasn’t going to let me in on the joke.

“But who...Oh,” I said, understanding finally.  “That’s you, is it?”  He nodded, still smiling.  “You think you’re a fairy godmother or something?”  I asked.

“Or something,” he agreed.

Likelihood that I'll be back for more:  This book was really cute!  I’d love to read more like it.  I especially enjoyed the Scottish setting, as this is something I’ve rarely seen make its way over to the U.S.

Recommended for:  I wish I’d had this book a year ago when my sister’s house got broken into over Thanksgiving.  This would have been great for her to read with the kids.  

Real life repercussions of reading this book:  I will be very careful about what I sculpt in the future.  Strictly rainbows and unicorns for me.