Kids into books: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Author: Diana Wynne Jones

Illustrator: Tim Stevens

Publisher: Harper Collins, $14.95

Age Group: 8-12 years


The Anywheres were mostly quite different from London.

They were hotter or colder, with strange trees and stranger houses. Sometimes the people in them looked ordinary, sometimes their skin was bluish or reddish and their eyes were peculiar, but they were always very kind to Christopher.

He had a new adventure every time he went on a dream. In the active adventures people helped him escape through cellars of odd buildings, or he helped them in wars, or in rounding up dangerous animals. In the calm adventures, he got new things to eat and people gave him toys.

He lost most of the toys as he was scrambling back
home over the rocks, but he did manage to bring
back the shiny shell necklace the silly ladies gave him, because he could hang it round his neck.