Boarding school full of witches in a world where witches are illegal and burned to death.

Children being revoltingly normal, uncivilised, self centred little beasts.

Larwood House is a mixed boarding-school in England. it is an England that is set in our present but unlike our world as there are real witches are everywhere, and they are being ruthlessly hunted and burned by Witch inquisitors. Most of the students at the school are children of executed witches or witch sympathisers. the note discovered at the start of the book is sufficient reason for the faculty to call in the Inquisitors. Unfortunately, two unpopular students, Charles Morgan and Nan Pilgrim, have just discovered that they can do magic.

So who is the witch? Nan who turns out to be a decedent of the most famous Arch-Witch? Charles who helped a witch escape and holds a sympathetic view toward witches? Or could it be Brian, the son of one of the teachers, whose behaviour gets weirder everyday?

Once I had figured out all the connections and who was who - the story ended - and I have to confess the ending has me confused. I think I get what happened - but then maybe I don't. ( )

Chrestomanci is an enchanter in charge of controlling witchcraft in the many parallel universes out there. Each one has arisen when there were two different potential outcomes for example in one world Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo. One particular world forbids witchcraft and when a note appears on the desk of teacher Mr Crossley accusing someone in class 2Y of being a witch panic and accusations soon set in.

In this particular school it could easily be true as many of the pupils are witch-orphans whose parents were burnt as witches on bone-fires. As events in the story unfold we discover there is a witch in the class, in fact there are more than one. Misfits Charles, Nan, Brian, Estelle and Nirupam are forced to form an unlikley allience to put their world right allowing witchcraft to be practised freely with the emergency help of Chrestomanci.

This is the third book in the series and I enjoyed it enough to look for the rest. The idea of all worlds being inherantly magical was fun and the main characters were interesting, especially Nirupam who didn't have as much of a role as some of the others. It was funny that "magic" is used as a swear word in their world as well as some other little references that made their world different from ours. A fun read. ( )

It's been a while since I've read this book, but I remember appreciating how real the children's fear seemed to be. I also remember how those who had any association with a witch, were in a separate class, and were treated poorly. It's a story of good vs evil, but what was considered to be evil, was actually good! Remembering all this makes me want to read it again! ( )

A magical school story set in the Chrestomanci series of worlds. This book shows off one of DWJ's strong points, which is characterization. The children of 6B are very true-to-life and you probably went (or go) to school with similar personalities. The world, however, is a bit unusual. Witches are real and illegal. Anyone proved to be a witch is burnt at the stake. So when a note is found that says that someone in 6B is a witch, it's a serious accusation. But it seems that there might really be more than one witch and if they don't figure out how to use their powers soon, there could be fatal consequences. But what kid who's just discovered they have magic powers could resist a few pranks, however dangerous. Typical school problems collide with magical ones, and an exciting story is the result. ( )