Another Master Sorcerer of Kids’ Fantasy Fiction

Long before J.K. Rowling began working her magic on readers, English author Diana Wynne Jones had cast her spell.

Jones has written more than 30 books of children’s magical fantasy since 1977. Like Rowling’s, they are distinguished for their whimsy and wordplay, as well as for the intricacy of their plots. But while Jones’ books are especially popular in her native England (they are rumored to be among the most stolen from libraries there), her following on both sides of the Atlantic has not reached the fever-pitch fanaticism as that for Harry Potter, despite similarities in the two women’s work and some critics’ claims that Jones’ books are as good, if not better than, Rowling’s.

Jones is annoyed by the constant comparisons. Still, she said, “You feel half exasperated and half rather proud that you started something.”

Now, with parents looking to tide their children over until the July 8 release date of the next Harry Potter adventure, Jones’ books are being discovered by a broader audience as the perfect bedtime snack for magic-hungry minds.

“Diana Wynne Jones is one of the foundations of fantasy,” said Valerie Lewis, owner of Hicklebee’s, a children’s bookstore in San Jose.

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“The Lives of Christopher Chant” is one of Jones’ best-selling titles and is part of a four-book series, the Chrestomanci quartet. The book follows the nine lives of a prepubescent English lad whose mother is a sorceress and father is an enchanter. When his parents discover he is able to travel to “Almost Anywheres” (alternate worlds in his dreams) and bring back physical objects, they send him to Chrestomanci Castle. There, he learns to hone his wizardry skills so he can be entrusted with preventing the misuse of magic by evildoers.

If the plot sounds a little familiar, it’s because, like Rowling, Jones draws on folk tales, myths and legends in her books, imbuing story lines with magic and seemingly insignificant details that later contribute to the plot and eventual resolution of the characters’ problems.

While it is a staple of the fantasy genre to vest seemingly ordinary characters with extraordinary powers, Jones seems to do it especially well.

“A really good writer, like Diana Wynne Jones, makes the character feel very human and very much like the reader,” said Elizabeth Devereaux, a contributing editor for children’s literature with Publisher’s Weekly. Kids are especially drawn to magic in fiction because they do not yet have control over their lives, she explained. Magic allows them to expand their powers beyond the possible.

“Anything which is a problem to you can be put in magical terms, and then you can sort of walk around it and enjoy it instead of finding it horrifying,” Jones said during a telephone conversation from her home in Bristol, England. As for her own interest in otherworldly powers, Jones said it comes from being denied such books as a child. “We really didn’t have anything except for the most unmagical and moralistic books--the kind where the heroine is so saintly that she ends up in a wheelchair. . . .”

Jones was born in 1934 and grew up during World War II. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Oxford University, where acclaimed fantasy writers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were her professors. She was unaware of their work at the time, she said. Nor did she have any inkling that she would wind up writing fantasy fiction for children.

“The very first one I got published I wrote because my oldest son said with enormous feeling that he didn’t find there were enough funny books around, and would I please write something that made him laugh,” said the mother of three.

The result was “Charmed Life,” printed in 1977. It won Britain’s prestigious Guardian award one year later. Over the years, Jones has accumulated several other awards--from the American Library Assn. and the Boston Globe. Last year she won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature and an award from the British Fantasy Society.

She is negotiating with a Japanese animation firm over one of her books, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” for a film, and movie rights to two other stories have been optioned.

Jones said her books were initially marketed to children because there was no identifiable readership for adult fantasy when she began writing. And she is still primarily recognized as a children’s writer, though she has a sizable following among grown-ups, as well.

“Most of my books are written also with a view to the adults who have to read them aloud. This was inspired largely by the sight of my husband falling instantly asleep when he was required to read bedtime stories,” she said.

While Jones is still being discovered by many, lifelong readers of her books are nothing less than fanatical. Some even go so far as to feel empathically slighted on Jones’ behalf by Rowling’s outrageous success.

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“I just wish Diana Wynne Jones would get the kind of attention accorded to the Harry Potter series because children are losing out,” one customer on the Amazon.com Web site wrote in a review of “Charmed Life.” “I am now 26 and read this book for the first time when I was 11 or 12--and then kept rereading it. I have always remembered it as being one of my favorite books.”

Another customer from Leeds, England, complained of having to reorder all her Jones books because when she loaned them out, they were never returned.

“[Jones’ books] are better written, deeper-minded, more original and they demand more from their readers, all of which may be why they are not as wildly popular,” said Jane Yolen, an award-winning children’s book author.

And while Jones herself said she enjoyed Rowling’s books “very much” and that they were “extremely well done,” she also said that “there’s no doubt that all that’s gone before are represented in the Harry Potter books.”

It is only natural, in the face of such an overwhelming cultural phenomenon, that the Harry Potter series has its detractors. But all the sniping about whether or not Jones is better than Rowling “is unnecessary and unfortunate,” Devereaux said.

“When Harry Potter . . . became a household name, there were a number of children’s librarians and book critics who were very critical of the phenomenon. A lot of people said that Diana Wynne Jones’ plotting is superior, more interesting. I hate to see this because I don’t think that giving attention to one takes away from another. One book opens another,” she added.

That has certainly been true for the fantasy genre as a whole.

“Some adults are realizing that by reading children’s fiction, they’re getting something they’re not getting from adult books--strong stories,” said David Almond, who won the 1998 Whitbread Award for his book “Skellig.”

Almond is one of numerous children’s fantasy authors who are enjoying increased sales and a crossover adult audience because of Harry Potter. Many of the authors who are popping up on things-to-read-while-you’re-waiting lists are English.

“The English are better at fantasy than Americans are,” Devereaux said. “We’re the people who come up with ‘Sally, Dick and Jane,’ and they’re the ones who come up with ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ”

And now Harry Potter. When all is said and done, Rowling’s most lasting legacy may be that she opened more children’s eyes to reading.

“A whole lot of kids suddenly realize that books are fun,” Jones said. “You wouldn’t believe how unfun most adults manage to make books for kids.”

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Susan Carpenter can be reached at Susan.carpenter@latimes.com.