Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

My three youngest grandchildren suggested I read this book, one of their favorites. It is probably more in the children's literature category than in the young adult category. Adults readers will probably find it too simplistic.

This is a fairy-tale type fantasy, with a young woman cursed to look like an old hag, a wicked witch, a handsome wizard and his young apprentice, a scarecrow that comes alive, and a couple of fire demons. That might sound a bit scary, but it's not at all, not even a little bit. Instead, the tone is humorous, very much tongue-in-cheek. It's really a parody of the genre, not to be taken seriously. As such, it is quite entertaining.

Young people today seem to be very fond of books written in this fashion. I myself prefer serious fantasy that seems real when I suspend my disbelief, but then I wasn't raised on Disney movies which give everything a comic tone, even the stories from the Brothers Grimm and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

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