Witch week - Diana Wynne Jones

A truly magical story of school, witchcraft - and an enchanter called Chrestomanci.

Panic strikes when the rumour goes round that there is a witch in school. Witchcraft is punishable by death - so why does someone think it's funny to enchant shoes and make broomsticks fly? Maybe there is more than one witch at work in the school.

DIANA WYNNE JONES was born in August 1934 in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. The family moved around a lot, finally settling in rural Essex. As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by a father, 'who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest'. So, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable quest for good books to read, she decided that she would have to write them herself.

'The story romps along, the dialogue is excellent and the characters carefully observed.' Judith Elkin, The Times Literary Supplement