Diana Wynne Jones

When an anonymous note claims someone in the class is a witch, everyone is eager to prove it is someone else, and Chrestomancy arrives just in time to prevent disaster.

Witch Week

Sarah Sammis

** spoiler alert **
           Witch Week is the fourth book in the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynn Jones.

This story reminds me of both the Harry Potter series (except that it predates the series by a decade) and Among the Impostors by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

The story opens with a teacher at a boarding school finding a note that says: "someone in this class is a witch." In this alternate earth magic exists but is illegal in Britain. Fear of having an Inquisitor come to the school causes trouble for a number of the students.

Like the Shadow Children of Among the Impostors, the school has been protecting a number of witches, old and young. Under the stress of having the school under such close scrutiny causes a number of magical flare ups. Each of these events allows Jones to drop hints at the historical events that lead to the modern day situation of witches being forced into hiding and witchcraft being an automatic death sentence (by burning, of course).

To tie up the original quartet, the Chrestomanci from the first book makes an appearance to set things straight. His involvement helps to tie this alternate world to the worlds of the previous books and to create a much richer universe than the world Rowling has created for Harry Potter et al.

If you haven't read the other books in the series, it isn't necessary to start at the beginning. Each book can be read as a stand-alone volume.

There are good witches and bad witches, but the law says that all witches must be burned at the stake. So when an anonymous note warns, "Someone in this class is a witch," the students in 6B are nervous—especially the boy who's just discovered that he can cast spells and the girl who was named after the most famous witch of all. Witch Week features the debonair enchanter Chrestomanci, who also appears in Charmed Life, The Magicians of Caprona, and The Lives of Christopber Chant. Someone in the class is a witch. At least so the anonymous note says. Everyone is only too eager to prove it is someone else—because in this society, witches are burned at the stake.

(Bre)anne✨

Zara Doulton

Oliver Magnanimous

Hannah Swithinbank

Stefan Ladstätter-Thaa

Luca Masters

Boothby

Jacalyn Boggs

Isabella

Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones favourite, featuring Chrestomanci - now a book with extra bits! SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH When the note, written in ordinary ballpoint, turns up in the homework books Mr Crossley is marking, he is very upset. For this is Larwood House, a school for witch-orphans, where witchcraft is utterly forbidden. And yet magic keeps breaking out all over the place - like measles! The last thing they need is a visit from the Divisional Inquisitor. If only Chrestomanci could come and sort out all the trouble.

Witch Week

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