More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! 'Well, he's fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,' she said. 'Half the time I think he doesn't care what happens to anyone as long as he's alright--but then I find out how awfully kind he's been to someone. Then I think he's kind just when it suits him--only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don't know, Your Majesty. He's a mess.

For Charmed Life the first Chrestomanci novel Jones won the 1978 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize a once-in-a-lifetime award by The Guardian newspaper that is judged by a panel of children's writers. There Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong the literary critic) and Ursula spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. Works


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Notes.

Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 – 26 March 2011) was an English writer principally of fantasy novels for children and adults as well as a small amount of non-fiction.