Howl's Moving Castle

By Diana Wynne Jones

When you are the eldest of three you are doomed to fail. Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three sisters who was to inherit her father's hatshop and live a very dull life indeed. But after the Witch of the Waste comes in to buy a hat and doesn't find what she likes, she curses Sophie to be an old woman. Sophie decides she has nothing to stay for and leaves to find her fortune. Instead she falls in with the dubious Wizard Howl and his fire demon, getting herself into a bargain she didn't plan for. If she can break the contract between the wizard and his demon, then the demon will take the curse off of her. In an adventure full of magic, laughs, and wonderful twists, Sophie will find that perhaps it isn't so bad to be the eldest of three!

This book is my favorite. Diana has a style clearly her own that rings out with a dry and truly amusing humor. Her books are full of magic that is both easy to understand and very creative and new. And her characters are some you will never forget after reading. Howl is hilarious and one of my favorite characters in a book. Sophie will have you rolling with her antics. This book is just fun to read and purely entertaining. It's got everything a reader could want. I highly recomend this book to anyone who enjoys a great story and loveable characters with a great adventure to boot! (Just as a side note, my email is actually a line from this book, that's how much I love it!) Here comes green slime! ^_^

Fun Facts: Diana lives in England, so her stories have all the fun words like, 'bother' and 'drat'! in them. She has written over 30 books for youth. The Chronicles of Chrestomanci are great fun to read, as well as the Dalemark Quartet along with the two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle; Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways. If you like Howl, there's more where that came from! Also, Howl's Moving Castle was made into an animated movie that is very good, but very very different from the movie. While they are very different though, I like them both almost equally well. (The book is still better.)