Book description
This is the story of Ayna and Ceri, who both had Gifts, and of Gair,
who thought he was ordinary.
Gair spent his time gazing out onto the Moor and brooding. Ayna could
answer questions about the future, Ceri could find things which were
lost. Gair seems to have no Gift and knew he was a disappointment to his
jovial, heroic father - who is Chief. Perhaps his feelings of not
fitting in was what made him so curious about these other different
sorts of beings who lived on the Moor - the Giants and the Dorig.
Certainly it was because he believed he was ordinary that he did his
best to become wise, and to learn as much as he could abou the three
great Powers of Sun, Moon and Earth. And when the crisis came, Gair
found the knowledge he had gained was to help save not only his own life
but those of all his people. “…Her hallmarks include laugh-aloud
humour, plenty of magic and imaginative array of alternate worlds. Yet,
at the same time, a great seriousness is present in all of her novels, a
sense of urgency that links Jones's most outrageous plots to her
readers' hopes and fears…”
Publishers Weekly Diana Wynne Jones spent her childhood in Essex and
has been writing fantasy novels for children since 1973. With her unique
combination of magic, humour and imagination, she has been enthralling
children and adults with her work ever since. She won the Guardian Award
in 1977 with Charmed Life, was runner-up for the Children's Book Award
in 1981, and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal. She is married
with three sons, and lives in Bristol with her husband.
