| Witch Week | |
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Cover from the 2001 American edition. |
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| Author(s) | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Chrestomanci Series |
| Genre(s) | Children's, Fantasy novel |
| Publication date | 1982 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-06-029879-0 (paperback) |
| OCLC Number | 47044550 |
| Preceded by | Charmed Life |
| Followed by | The Lives of Christopher Chant |
Witch Week is part of the Chrestomanci series of fantasy novels by Diana Wynne Jones. It was named a School Library Journal Book of the Year. Witch Week was first published in the United Kingdom in 1982, and in the United States of America in 1988.
Contents |
Witch Week follows the story of four students, who, after discovering they are witches, must come to terms with allegations of much-feared witchcraft within the school.
This book is set in an alternate modern-day England (World Twelve C), identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death, policed by a modern-day Inquisition.
At Larwood House, an underfunded boarding school that many of the adolescent children of executed witches are sent to, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by one of the teachers. This launches an internal investigation of several of the more unpopular students at the school, some of whom are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they can do magic. In the traditional manner of kids , magic and mischief, mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and to do the traditional flying on a broomstick. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, blaming the witch for controlling him. This launches an investigation and the Inquisition is called to locate any witches and have them burned.
Four of the students escape the school, two of them turning for help to an old part of an underground railroad system for witches to send them to another world where they'll be safe. While the old woman who lives there tells them the system broke down long ago, she does give them a spell to say at the Oak Grove that will summon help in an emergency. The four students and Brian, the runaway, gather at the Grove and say "Chrestomanci" three times, which summons the nine-lives enchanter from The Lives of Christopher Chant to help them. With his help, and the help of their classmates, most of which are witches themselves, the kids outwit the Inquisitor and ultimately revise their world's history by merging their world (Twelve A) with ours (Twelve B), which has no magic. When the note is found in this world, everyone exclaims they are the witch, and it is seen as normal.
One of the major themes in the story is overcoming prejudice. Like much of Diana Wynne Jones' work, Witch Week encourages readers to think for themselves and seek to make a positive change in the world.
Larwood House recalls the equally dire Lowood School from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, although in Witch Week the miserable conditions of the school are often used for comic effect.
It is interesting to note that, in almost every version of the book published, the class the story focuses on has a different name, according to the age group the publishers were aiming the book at the time. For instance:
Though often compared to J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of books, mainly because both are in the children's fantasy genre and set in a boarding school, there are many distinct differences. For example, while in the Harry Potter series many of the pupils have a strong attachment to Hogwarts (the boarding school the series is set in) and enjoy their time there, both the students and teachers of Larwood House detest the school and their time spent there. One also gets the impression Larwood House is a poor school, due to the descriptions of drafty corridors, peeling wallpaper, horrible food, et cetera, most unlike the sumptuous setting of Harry Potter. Also, since witchcraft is illegal in the world in which Larwood House is located, the students only dare do any magic in the utmost secrecy, a sharp contrast to the Hogwarts of Harry Potter, where magic lessons are the whole point of being there. In the Harry Potter series, the main protagonists are good friends and help one another out of difficult situations, whereas the characters focused upon in Witch Week dislike each other immensely (until toward the end, at least) and, instead of assisting the other main characters out of trouble, are often content to let the suspicion rest on one of the other suspected witches, in order to divert it from themselves.
Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card, reviewing several DWJ reissues in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, wrote
Thus it is that underneath what seems to be rather low comedy—brooms that demand to be taken riding by witches (and hoes and rakes and mops that can be ridden, but behave more like mules and pigs than noble steeds); prankster spells at about the level of magic spitwads—there is a continuous foundation of truth. Children need powerful adult intervention to help them get control of their powers and keep their powers from taking control of them. Instead of using them for immediate self-gratification, the children instead have to create and respect certain limits in order to avoid destroying themselves and others. Not that anyone ever says such a thing outright. Rather the stories are that lesson, learned over and over again, yet with such humor and extravagant imagination and devastating satire that few readers will imagine that they are being civilized as they read. [1]
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