Witch Week (Chrestomanci Books (Hardcover))

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Summary: Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones ...
Review: A note that had written by someone warns "Someone in this class is a witch." A boy named Charles discovers that he could cast spells and he do cast spells on people. "Simon says" spell. Whatever Simon does became true. A girl named Nan Pilgrim who's ancestor is a famous witch of all Dulcinea Wilkes becomes a witch too. She discovers that she could ride brooms and suddenly describes things with magic. This book is an enthusiastic book with lots of astonishing characters such as Brian Wentworth, Charles Morgan, Nan Pilgrim (Dulcinea Pilgrim), Nirupam, Estelle etc. If you hadn't read this book yet, you should try this book!!
The book has a mysteries of witches and witchcraft all across the book. ...

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Summary: One of the best books ever
Review: Anything by Diana Wynne Jones is great, but this book is one of her best. For sheer creativity, she could beat the pants off of JK Rowling any day of the week.

Her characterization is fantastic--some of the things that her characters think rang so true that I've been spoiled for all authors who don't know how to write individual children. Their journal entries are great.

Her plot is also wonderful. In typical Jones fashion it's completely twisty. You'll never know what's coming next until you get to the end and suddenly everything just falls so beautifully into place. You'll be sorry that the book has to end at all.

I re-read this book every year, and always find new details I missed. It gets better with every read.

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Summary: Witch Week and Witchcraft- Diana Wynne Jones
Review: At first I thought this book wasn't interesting, but after reading this I realized that this book was an enthusiasting book. Witch Week is about witches in the 6-B Class of Larwood School. One day when Mr. Crossley was checking some geography books a note fell onto his desk. " Someone in this class is a witch." The students in 6-B gets curious of who was a witch. A boy named Charles Morgan discovers that he was a witch and starts to cast spells and a girl called Nan Pilgrim whose ancestor was a famous witch named Dulcinea Wilkes rides on a broomstick and also casts spells. The story flows along with these witches casting spells, such as "Simon says..." whatever a character Simon says comes true........
Then afterall a rescueir comes to this world by Nan and Estelle. They casts a spell on a piece of paper and from that spell Chrestomanci comes and figures out this witch problem. The witches in the Nan's world are chased by inquisitors and burned.
Why don't you read this book and find out the amazing conflict by yourself.

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Summary: Before the advent of The Harry Potter there was...
Review: Diana Wynne Jones. Now, I don't want to say anything bad about dear old Harry, in fear of being deluged with hate mail. So, a disclaimer: I *liked* Harry Potter. Well, moderately. I don't think Harry Potter is a god or anything. After reading The Sorcerer's Stone, I thought "There has got to be more than this", and so I went out to find Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series.

Now I've read two of them: Charmed Life, and Witch Week. Both books surpass Harry in depth of character (etc.) and in quality of writing, but Witch Week is the better of the two. The plot is intriguing: in a world exactly like ours, except that they still burn people as witches, someone in a sixth-grade class is accused of being a witch. It sounds pretty serious for a children's book, but Diana Wynne Jones treats her subject with sensitivity and humor. (Some parts are actually hilariously funny.) By the end, all the questions you had are answered, and everything is resolved in an unexpected but satisfactory way that only Diana Wynne Jones could pull off. Overall, an excellent book.

If you think Harry Potter is the center of the universe--excuse me (don't insult anyone), let's start over, If you liked the Harry Potter books, you must try Diana Wynne Jones. If you're really devoted to Harry Potter, you'll probably never allow another book to take its place. But keep an open mind, and try to see that there are more great books out there.

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Summary: Simon says-READ THIS BOOK!
Review: Every page of this enchanting third book of the Chrestomanci Quartet is captivating, and wonderfully humorous! Charles and Nan are two dull kids on a strage world where witches still around, and ilegal! If you're a witch, you are going to be burned at the stake! This is a comical book about the ways choices effect peoples lives, and how we can sometimes (if we're lucky) go back and fix them. The wackyness of riding a mop and a garden hoe to escape the privet school for troubled childern, and the whole dress up of the cross examining room (black material draped along the walls, a chair with a wired cap to go on someone's head, sharp objects, and containers that say do not open! Danger!) that Chrestomanci uses when he pretends to be a government official looking for a witch are charming. I reccomend this book to any HARRY POTTER fan, because Diana Wynne Jones has got a magical touch in her fingers.

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Summary: Lots of fun, but uncomfortably true
Review: I didn't like "Witch Week" the first time I read it - perhaps because I was the same age as the characters and found it too close to the bone? But I re-read it recently, and was really impressed with it as a good story that doesn't let anyone, child or adult, off the hook when it comes to being responsible for their own behaviour.
Larwood House is a English boarding school of the worst sort, full of bullies, horrible food, communal baths and unsympathetic teachers. It's also a school for witch orphans. Everyone is on the lookout for signs of developing magic in the students, so that the inquisitors can be called to interrogate the unfortunate child and burn them if they turn out to be a witch.
Trouble starts when a note is found by a teacher alleging that someone in 2Y is a witch. The teachers plot and scheme to uncover (or hide) the truth, and the students get abusive towards those they suspect, or would like to believe, is a witch. It's very effective picture of just how cruel and hierarchical teenagers can be towards each other. But that description makes the book sound exclusively unpleasant, and it's not. There are a number of hilarious situations as magic starts to run riot at Larwood House, and the characters, particularly Nan and Charles, are very appealing and very much true to life. Finally, when it seems that the situation is getting too hot for everyone, a number of the characters take desperate measures, which lead to the arrival of a certain enchanter and the revelation of an astonishing secret.
"Witch Week" is not a message book - it's a fun and exciting story with a strong moral streak, as is typical for Wynne Jones' books. Definitely worth reading.

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Summary: Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones ...
Review: I'm as much of a Harry Potter fan as the next girl, but this story really takes the cake for a good book. It's fun for kids of all ages, and it'll have you cracking your ribs with laughter. In one of the many worlds parallel to our own, witches are as common as freckles, yet witchcraft is a crime punishable by death. So when one student of class 6-B anonymously slips a note to the teacher that says one student in the class is a witch, it is a very serious matter in deed. All the characters have real depth and are perfectly believable. Lowood school is just horrible enough to be real. And, most importantly, THIS BOOK IS HILARIOUS!!!

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Summary: Just as good as Charmed Life
Review: In a very strange world, different and similar to ours, in a classroom a teacher finds a note tucked inbetween too books. "Someone in this class is a witch" is written in big letters. But who is the witch? In this world every witch, good or bad, is condemmed to be burned at the stake. Could this witch be Charles, a boy who's just discovered he can do spells? Or is it Nam, a girl who's named atfter the most famout Witch of them all? THe teacher dosen't know but from that day on strange things start to happen. Things that only the great Chrestomanci can fix.

I really liked this book. It was just as good as the other book in the series I've read, Charmed life. If your a fan of magic books and/or works by Diane Wynne-Jones I really reccomend this book. I'm part-way through the next book in the series and I'm just as pleased. If you like fictional witchcraft and magic read this book!

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Summary: Don't waste your money--OR time!
Review: It's about a witch in a school of non witches. It reminds me a little of Harry Potter except that they aren't all witches/wizards.

If you aren't allowed to read Harry Potter you probably won't be allowed to read this one but it is really good. I read it 6 years ago but I still remember it well.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book was highly (and repeatedly) recommended by Polly Shulman on Slate.com, so I enlisted the help of my sisters and friends in searching for it so we could read it. When my sister finally found it, I couldn't wait to start reading it. I am sorry to report that I had more fun looking forward to reading the book than I did actually reading it. Maybe I'm too old to identify with the characters (I'm 25), maybe I'm too used to the skillful plotting and effortless pacing of J.K. Rowling, or maybe this book is really as labored and confused as I thought it was. Shulman calls Witch Week "an important predecessor to Harry Potter," and it certainly is in the sense that it is set at a boarding school, features children with magical powers, and was published in 1982--a decade before the Harry Potter craze swept the world. But it hardly comes close to J.K. Rowling's work in terms of wit, inventiveness, and sheer delight, and at no point did it reach out and pull me into its world as Harry Potter always does. The other two books by Diana Wynne Jones that I've read--Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant--are somewhat better, but still not quite up there with Harry Potter.