1,982 books
—
4,305 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Enchanted Glass” as Want to Read:
Enchanted Glass
by
Aidan Cain has had the worst week of his life. His gran died, he was sent to a foster home, and now malicious beings are stalking him. There is one person Gran told Aidan to go to if he ever got into trouble—a powerful sorcerer who lives at Melstone House.
But when Aidan arrives on the doorstep, he finds that the sorcerer's grandson, Andrew, has inherited the house. The goo ...more
But when Aidan arrives on the doorstep, he finds that the sorcerer's grandson, Andrew, has inherited the house. The goo ...more
Get A Copy
Hardcover, 292 pages
Published
April 6th 2010
by Greenwillow Books
(first published January 1st 2010)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Enchanted Glass,
please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Miriam Robarts
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Rhiannon Miller
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of Enchanted Glass

One thing I've always liked about Diana Wynne Jones' books for children is that she makes no artificial barrier between adults and children; they're all people. So rather than have the grownups dismiss or disbelieve the children's real concerns for no apparent reason other than that they're grownups, in her books parental and other adult figures listen, understand, and get stuck in to the magic. In Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones takes this a stage further: even though the book is obviously a
...more

This is Diana Wynne Jones at her very best, a mixture of magic, humor, and sheer delight as an absent-minded professor inherits/encounters his grandfather's house, his magical field-of-care, two tyrannical servants, a giant, a weredog, a beautiful secretary, and a young boy hiding from the magical forces who are trying to kill him.
Don't worry if you're confused, it will all be sorted out in the end, as Andrew gets his head out of the clouds and begins to figure out the puzzle that has been left ...more
Don't worry if you're confused, it will all be sorted out in the end, as Andrew gets his head out of the clouds and begins to figure out the puzzle that has been left ...more

Apr 02, 2010
Joel
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Joel by:
Connie Fletcher
2.5 stars.
I had to choose the UK edition, as the cover of the US version is totally lame. Who do they think it's going to appeal to? Boys won't want to read it because it has rainbow swirls, and girls won't want to read it because it's about a smelly boy. I certainly felt stupid finishing it in Starbucks this afternoon (though I did get to sit next to the old lady with a Kindle and her iPad-wielding elderly husband again... the second time I've encountered these tech-savvy retirees).
So this is a ...more
I had to choose the UK edition, as the cover of the US version is totally lame. Who do they think it's going to appeal to? Boys won't want to read it because it has rainbow swirls, and girls won't want to read it because it's about a smelly boy. I certainly felt stupid finishing it in Starbucks this afternoon (though I did get to sit next to the old lady with a Kindle and her iPad-wielding elderly husband again... the second time I've encountered these tech-savvy retirees).
So this is a ...more

On the death of his grandfather, Andrew leaves his professorship to run the family home...and the accompanying magical estate. As he grows used to his new responsibilities, he remembers more and more of what his grandfather taught him about magic, and he starts noticing encroachment on his magical lands. Andrew tries to beat back the fairies' slow invasion with the (sometimes inadvertent) help of his fellow villagers.
This is a lovely book, and I absolutely love the way the village, Melstone Hous ...more
This is a lovely book, and I absolutely love the way the village, Melstone Hous ...more

This book was really great!
I picked it up because I had it in my scribd library and was looking for something whimsical and fun to read. I had never read any of Diana Wynne Jones books before, but I saw Neil Gaiman had given this book 5 stars and he is one of my favourite authors.
This was very different from middle grade fantasy that I have read before. It feels very magical throughout the book (although in the beginning there's just small things happening) it really captures this whimsical fee ...more
I picked it up because I had it in my scribd library and was looking for something whimsical and fun to read. I had never read any of Diana Wynne Jones books before, but I saw Neil Gaiman had given this book 5 stars and he is one of my favourite authors.
This was very different from middle grade fantasy that I have read before. It feels very magical throughout the book (although in the beginning there's just small things happening) it really captures this whimsical fee ...more

Jul 23, 2020
Arie
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
audiobook,
big-old-houses
Brilliant audiobook reading of another excellent Diana Wynne Jones tale.
(Though... I didn't notice this the first time around but I could have really done without the final, last-page revelation that feels... deeply problematic) ...more
(Though... I didn't notice this the first time around but I could have really done without the final, last-page revelation that feels... deeply problematic) ...more

3.5 stars. To be fair to this book, I think if I had the paper book as well as the audiobook and could've switched back and forth like I usually do, I'd have enjoyed this a lot more.
Having only the audiobook and a wandering, distracted mind didn't contribute to maximum enjoyment of this one. I can almost bet I missed a paragraph here or there while multi-tasking that I'd have caught had I switched to the paper book at night.
Saying that though, I always enjoy this author's writing. Her magic is ...more
Having only the audiobook and a wandering, distracted mind didn't contribute to maximum enjoyment of this one. I can almost bet I missed a paragraph here or there while multi-tasking that I'd have caught had I switched to the paper book at night.
Saying that though, I always enjoy this author's writing. Her magic is ...more

Diana Wynne Jones is my all-time favorite author, and I really enjoyed this book. However - especially compared to her previous work - I felt like the characters and world-building weren't as strong, and it had the younger feel of The Pinhoe Egg as opposed to the older feel of something like Fire and Hemlock. The idea of "counterparts" didn't go far enough. But I did love another DWJ read and hope I continue to get one every few years!
...more

I've followed DWJ's books for a loooong time - I can't say with authority that I've read all of them, but I've certainly read most, at one time or another. My husband grabbed this for me when he saw it at the library. It's engaging and well-constructed, with likeable characters, as usual... but there are a couple of things about it that really kind of bother me. First, within the first two chapters, we have three dead mothers and a dead grandmother in the backgrounds of the various main characte
...more

Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful. I was so excited to have a brand-new DWJ book to read, that wa unrelated to what had come before. New characters, new people to meet. Her standard themes were there, where she gathers a group of disparate people into one place, antagonistic toward each other they may be, with the right characteristics to step up to the plate to defeat the bad guys when the other members fail. Diana Wynne Jones knows and illustrates the value of the group and the individual's unique
...more

I love DWJ and would rather have a new book from her than almost any other children's author I can think of, and I had a lot of fun reading this one: neat magic, excellent characters, very funny. That said, though, I did think it was rather derivative of a couple of her other recent books (The Pinhoe Egg and House of Many Ways came to mind a lot), so I wouldn't put it with her top-rank books.
...more

Andrew Hope inherits his grandfather's field-of-care, although he's a bit vague on what that entails. He has his hands full with the housekeeper and his gardener, who dislike change almost as much as they dislike each other. Then young Aiden shows up on his doorstep. Having a twelve-year-old boy about the place rather opens Andrew's eyes to the magic he's been forgetting.
Overgrown vege and walking the boundaries. Magical knacks and cauliflower cheese. Racing results and polishing glasses. Stain ...more
Overgrown vege and walking the boundaries. Magical knacks and cauliflower cheese. Racing results and polishing glasses. Stain ...more

http://www.rantingdragon.com/enchante...
Enchanted Glass is Diana Wynne Jones’s last published book before her death on March 26, 2011. The novel is a charming young adult standalone in Wynne Jones’s trademark style, beloved by many and unique in British children’s literature. Professor Andrew Hope—he isn’t really a professor; he just happens to work at a university—inherits the old Melstone House and its ornery retinue after the death of Andrew’s grandfather, Jocelyn. Of course, Jocelyn w ...more
Enchanted Glass is Diana Wynne Jones’s last published book before her death on March 26, 2011. The novel is a charming young adult standalone in Wynne Jones’s trademark style, beloved by many and unique in British children’s literature. Professor Andrew Hope—he isn’t really a professor; he just happens to work at a university—inherits the old Melstone House and its ornery retinue after the death of Andrew’s grandfather, Jocelyn. Of course, Jocelyn w ...more

I should know by now not to mind the terrible covers on Diana Wynne Jones books. That said, if there’s one thing I know about my bookish self, it’s that I’m incredibly snobby about cover art. So, even though I trust her storytelling implicitly (and explicitly, for that matter), I was put off by this ugly cover and didn't read Enchanted Glass right away. I now wish I had, because in this middle grade fantasy Diana has created a marvelous story, characters and place, and I can see that I’ll be ret
...more

When Andrew's grandfather Jocelyn Brandon Hope dies, Andrew Hope inherits Melstone House and land. However, all is not what it seems -- Jocelyn Hope was in fact a magician and the surrounding land is deemed a 'field of care', meaning that Andrew has to 'beat the bounds' in order to retain its magical power. Andrew's childhood fondness for Melstone House now becomes complicated by its infusion with magic, especially the strangely coloured glass on an inside door and a counterpart he discovers in
...more

Any new book by Jones is a delicious treat, a reason to put down whatever else I'm doing and curl up with a cup of tea. This one, however, came with special poignancy because I received it just after I learned of her death. So I opened the pages with a kind of sadness, not wanting to admit that in many ways, this was farewell. (If there is another book to be published posthumously, I don't know of it.)
And found magic. Within a few paragraphs, her clear prose and unaffectedly direct storytelling ...more
And found magic. Within a few paragraphs, her clear prose and unaffectedly direct storytelling ...more

Apr 21, 2011
Joanna
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
children-ya
I think I might be in love... I gulped this book down marveling all the while how can a story so magical be so casual, so matter of fact about it? The mythical characters strolling nonchalantly into the story, the ancient magic radiating from everything in sight brought with them only the surprised remembrance, as if like Andrew I had simply forgotten about it all and now that I have remembered again nothing could be more natural.
It's one of those books that make me bemoan the fact that I did no ...more
It's one of those books that make me bemoan the fact that I did no ...more

Delightful perfection. All I can say right now, review to come later...

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

Man, those pages turn. Not on par with Howl's Moving Castle or Dark Lord of Derkhelm, but a whole lot of fun. I love the smart way Jones plays with the tropes of fantasy. Doubling is a classic technique, and she puts the reader on the path to understanding it very well. Plus, one of the bad guys gets beaned - quite effectively - with a giant zucchini. Happy sigh.
...more

I so enjoyed this book. I am pretty likely to pick up any Diana Wynne Jones book I run across if I haven't read it before. This one was especially fun. I was drawn to all the characters, and really had a good time watching the events play out. It's very playful with some impressive magical bits as well. So glad I found this book!
...more

Mar 05, 2017
Lorelei
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Lorelei by:
Laura
Shelves:
sf
If I'd read this as a teenager, I would have given it five stars.
...more

This is not literature. Obviously not. However I enjoyed it mightily as a bedtime read. Well, most of it anyway. The first 3/4 went by very quickly, and I remember remarking to my husband as I lay there reading, "I better put this away or I'll be here till 3 AM."
However. Titania and Oberon? Really? Kids (for whom this book was most definitely intended) would probably not get the Midsummer Night's Dream reference unless someone had taken them to the play or they had seen the DVD. And then it jus ...more
However. Titania and Oberon? Really? Kids (for whom this book was most definitely intended) would probably not get the Midsummer Night's Dream reference unless someone had taken them to the play or they had seen the DVD. And then it jus ...more

Now that he understood, Andrew could feel magic pouring in, homing in Melstone from light years away. It was being collected here. Someone, long ago, had set up the two sets of enchanted glass, the one here in the kitchen and the one in the roof of the shed, to act like two poles of an enormous horseshoe magnet, pulling magic into the field-of-care. The Brandon's main task was to protect this glass. They were supposed to used it for the good of the earth....more

This was an enchanting story, full of magic. I don’t usually read children’s books, and I never read Diana Wynne Jones before although I watched and liked the Manga version of her novel, Howl's Moving Castle. This book – I fell in love with. I enjoyed it tremendously and I’m definitely going to read more of this writer. Much more.
This particular tale is a quiet one. There are two protagonists: Andrew, an adult, and Aidan, a child. Andrew’s grandfather, the magician, died, and left Andrew a legac ...more
This particular tale is a quiet one. There are two protagonists: Andrew, an adult, and Aidan, a child. Andrew’s grandfather, the magician, died, and left Andrew a legac ...more

In a way, all Diana Wynne Jones' books remind me of each other. There's something very similar in the style of them -- though Enchanted Glass is perhaps a bit more subdued than the others -- and yet also something fresh, every time, something in the tone... A feeling, I suppose, that I wish Diana Wynne Jones would come and tell me bedtime stories, in a way: something about her stories would make my toes curl with glee at the same time as I would know it would be okay to go to sleep.
Enchanted Gla ...more
Enchanted Gla ...more

A fun story with nods to Shakespeare, British folklore, and classic faerie tropes. Andrew Hope is the classic absent-minded professor, who stumbles into an old feud when he inherits his uncle's field-of-care and unwittingly exacerbates it by taking a young boy under his protection. The boy, Aidan (whose name nobody except his friends can pronounce correctly -- a handy device for spot-the-foe), is clever, funny and kind; he makes friends not only with the local boys but also with the somewhat-slo
...more

I could NOT believe that my woefully inadequate local library had a Diana Wynne Jones book I hadn't read before (one summer I read 40 or so, and that, at the time, seemed to cover it), and I am delighted that it did. Enchanted Glass is reliably weird, and for a change, it's set in a lovely bucolic setting. I especially like the punishment vegetables. Jones invites you into her own logic without romanticism or explanation, and as with all her good books, it stretches out the inside of your head a
...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Abbie F review | 1 | 7 | Oct 19, 2015 04:46PM | |
Is it as good as her others? | 4 | 22 | Oct 23, 2014 12:29PM | |
Crazy for Young A...: Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones → Start Date: September 9, 2014 | 18 | 20 | Sep 19, 2014 11:40AM | |
Bookworms in Trum...: Enchanted Glass | 1 | 11 | Oct 17, 2011 09:49AM |
Diana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, in York, and back in London. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an ed
...more
Related Articles
If you love the fantasy genre, this is the season for you! Some of the biggest books out this fall promise to be epics full of magic, adventure,...
196 likes · 49 comments
9 trivia questions
1 quiz
More quizzes & trivia...
1 quiz
“I seem to have excalibured this knife.”
—
55 likes
“But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.”
—
35 likes
More quotes…