Synopses & Reviews
"I would like to declare Diana Wynne Jones an international treasure," proclaimed Neil Gaiman, Newbery Medalist and best-selling author. In this enchanting introduction to Diana Wynne Jones's magical and funny work, Earwig is a fearless young orphan. When she finds herself in a house of dark magic, she does whatever she can to adapt—especially if it means that she'll learn a little magic herself! A young middle grade novel by World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement‒winner Diana Wynne Jones, beautifully illustrated in black and white by Caldecott Medalist Paul O. Zelinsky.
Not every orphan would love living at St. Morwald's Home for Children, but Earwig does. She gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, and it's been that way since she was dropped on the orphanage doorstep as a baby. But all that changes the day Bella Yaga and the Mandrake come to St. Morwald's, disguised as foster parents. Earwig is whisked off to their mysterious house full of invisible rooms, potions, and spell books, with magic around every corner. Most children would run in terror from a house like that . . . but not Earwig. Using her own cleverness—with a lot of help from a talking cat—she decides to show the witch who's boss.
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“[A] joyfully chaotic tale.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“With this enthralling book, Jones proves that she is still at the top of her game.” Booklist (starred review)
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“This funny story updates fairy tale conventions while highlighting Joness subversive wit and her firm belief that children can control their own lives. … A fine introduction to the late authors more complex YA novels.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“Earwig is a plucky, bossy heroine, and the story is packed with with and humor. Zelinskys illustrations enhance this imaginative tale.” School Library Journal
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“Readers are treated to a nonstop plot, memorable characters, and signature DWJ touches … An accessible page design incorporates Zelinskys plentiful line illustrations, the best of which are showstoppers.” The Horn Book
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“A refreshing change of pace for young fantasy fans.” Booklist
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“Jones brings her characteristic witty humor and rich imagination to a whimsical chapter book that would undoubtedly delight as a readaloud. Stubborn and mischievous, Earwig is a likable, albeit irascible, heroine, and her triumph at the witchs expense will elicit plenty of cheerful howls.” Bulletin of the Center for Children & #8217;s Books
Synopsis
Got the other twelve witches all chasing me. I'll be back for her when I've shook them off. It may take years. Her name is Earwig.
Earwig has been at the orphanage ever since she was a baby. That's just how she likes it. She has her best friend, Custard, and everyone always does exactly what Earwig wants. She never wants to leave, so she makes sure no one ever picks her.
Then a very strange couple comes to the orphanage. They try to make themselves look ordinary. But Earwig knows they are not, not in the least. And they choose her, out of all the other children.
Earwig could be in for quite an unpleasant surprise. But so could the very strange couple.
About the Author
In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizardsand a charismatic nine-lived enchanterher books were filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. From the very beginning, Diana Wynne Joness books garnered literary accolades: her novel
Dogsbody was a runner-up for the 1975 Carnegie Medal, and Charmed Life won the esteemed Guardian childrens fiction prize in 1977. Since then, in addition to being translated into more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of honorsincluding two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honorsand appeared on countless best-of-the-year lists.
Her work also found commercial success: In 1992 the BBC adapted her novel Archers Goon into a six-part miniseries, and her bestselling Howls Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, and became one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history.
Diana Wynne Jones has also been honored with many prestigious awards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Societys Karl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on fantasy, received a D.Lit from Bristol University in 2006, and won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.
Born just outside London in 1934, Diana Wynne Jones had a childhood that was very vivid and often very distressingone that became the fertile ground where her tremendous imagination took root. When the raids of World War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger sisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their grandparents. This was to be the first of many migrations, one of which brought her family to Lane Head, a large manor in the author-populated Lake District and former residence of John Ruskins secretary, W.G . Collingwood. This time marked an important moment in Diana Wynne Joness life, where her writing ambitions were magnified by, in her own words, early marginal contacts with the Great. She confesses to having offending Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat, erasing a stack of drawings by the late Ruskin himself in order to reuse the paper, and causing Beatrix Potter (who also lived nearby) to complain about her and her sisters behavior. It struck me, Jones said, that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant, and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness. Prompted by her penny-pinching fathers refusal to buy the children any books, Diana Wynne Jones wrote her first novel at age twelve and entertained her sisters with readings of her stories. Those early storiesand much of her future workwere inspired by a limited but crucial foundation of classics: Malorys Morte DArthur, The Arabian Nights, and Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages.
Fantasy was Joness passion from the start, despite receiving little support from her often neglectful parents. This passion was fueled further during her tenure at St. Annes College in Oxford, where lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis increased her fascination with myth and legend. She married Medievalist John Burrow in 1956; the couple have three sons and six grandchildren.
After a decade of rejections, Diana Wynne Joness first novel, Changeover, was published in 1970. In 1973, she joined forces with her lifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana Wynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single year. Along the way she gained a fiercely loyal following; many of her admirers became successful authors themselves, including Newbery Award winners Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman, and Newbery Honor Book author Megan Whalen Turner. A conference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West England, Bristol, in 2009. Diana Wynne Jones continued to write during her battle with lung cancer, which ultimately took her life in March 2011. Her last book, Earwig and the Witch, was published by Greenwillow Books in 2012.