Chrestomanci

This morning Neil Gaiman’s blog made me happy. The train anecdote is funny, and the news that Dianna Wynne Jones is coming out with a new Chrestomanci novel made me smile with genuine anticipation. The books in this series are a long lost gem recovered from my childhood. I spent years in library school trying to track them down by reading YA reading lists and quizzing school librarians in training. All I had to go on was that the books were in the genre of fantasy, that they were a series of more than one book, that one of the books had a title with “capricorn” or “unicorn” or something like it (it was “ The Magicians of Caprona” – I was close!) and the precise location on the shelves where they could be found in my elementary school library. When I finally found them again, they were as good as they had ever been, though frustratingly out of print. A few years ago they were reprinted and I snatched up copies to read with Kurt and, maybe sometime soon, with Sophia. It’s delightful to know the series continues on. In my opinion, Dianna Wynne Jones is an underrated children’s author.