Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A deceptively simple fantasy about the children of an itinerant singer discovering, after his murder, that they are harboring a political fugitive.

I liked this. It's straightforward and old-fashioned, but with that DWJ way of passing lightly but complexly upon death and power and growing up and living in your own truth. This is one of those books where the magic isn't awoken by feel, it's awoken by thinking very hard and speaking truth to yourself.

And like a lot of DWJ books, it kept me engaged the entire time, even when what I was engaged in doing was vigorously arguing with this book's definition of honor. (For the record, my definition has a lot more self-respect in it, and specifically doesn't include a wife denying her happiness and desires in deference to her husband's political views, which she does not share). Or chewing uncomfortably over a passing reference to coercion that I found exponentially more creepy and awful than the book did. But I liked it for all that, which tells you something.




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