Year of the Griffin (Derkholm Series #2)

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Overview

It is eight years after the tours from offworld have stopped. High Chancellor Querida has retired, leaving Wizard Corkoran in charge of the Wizards' University. Although Wizard Corkoran's obsession is to be the first man on the moon, and most of his time is devoted to this project, he decides he will teach the new first years himself in hopes of currying the favor of the new students' families--for surely they must all come from wealth, important families--and obtaining money for the University (which it so desperately needs). But Wizard Corkoran is dismayed to discover that one of those students--indeed, one he had such high hopes for, Wizard Derk's own daughter Elda--is a hugh golden griffin, and that none of the others ...
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Overview

It is eight years after the tours from offworld have stopped. High Chancellor Querida has retired, leaving Wizard Corkoran in charge of the Wizards' University. Although Wizard Corkoran's obsession is to be the first man on the moon, and most of his time is devoted to this project, he decides he will teach the new first years himself in hopes of currying the favor of the new students' families--for surely they must all come from wealth, important families--and obtaining money for the University (which it so desperately needs). But Wizard Corkoran is dismayed to discover that one of those students--indeed, one he had such high hopes for, Wizard Derk's own daughter Elda--is a hugh golden griffin, and that none of the others has any money at all.

Wizard Corkoran's money-making scheme backfires, and when Elda and her new friends start working magic on their own, the schemes go wronger still. And when, at length, Elda ropes in her brothers Kit and Blade to send Corkoran to the moon...well...life at the Wizards' University spins magically and magnificently out of control.

This breathtakingly brilliant sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm is all one would expect from this master of genre.

Books for the Teen Age 2001 (NYPL) andBest Children's Books 2000 (PW)

When Elda, the griffin daughter of the great Wizard Derk, arrives for schooling at the Wizards' University, she encounters new friends, pirates, assassins, worry, sabotage, bloodshed, and magic misused.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Some readers think that this sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm is one of Jones's finest books, exemplifying her sweet blend of heartfelt fantasy and zestful wit.
Andrew Ogus
Readers who want more substance in character and plot of fantasy novels are advised to turn to the underrated novelist Diana Wynne Jones. —New York Times
Lloyd Alexander
I found Year of the Griffin filled with splendors and delights, sparkling plays of wit, and high flights of fancy — in short, Diana Wynne Jones at her best.
Megan Whalen Turner
Diana Wynne Jones chooses the most outlandish subjects and treats them with such aplomb that the reader never blinks. She always gives you characters you believe in from top to bottom and a world whose details you recognize inside and out. Her prose is transparent without ever being ordinary. Her humor is deft. All the worlds that Jones creates have her trademark integrity.
Robin McKinley
I love Diana Wynne Jones. Read this book. Read all the other ones, too.
Publishers Weekly
Infused with all manner of enchantments, this boisterous spoof of the campus novel reads like a cross between David Lodge and a particularly buoyant incarnation of J.R.R. Tolkien. Standards at the Wizards' University have fallen grievously in recent years: under the leadership of Wizard Corkoran (a charismatic slacker preoccupied with dreams of moon travel), the school's main goals seem to be to enrich its coffers and graduate classes of mediocre bureaucrats. Into this unpromising situation bounds first-year student Elda, griffin daughter of the powerful Wizard Derk (the eccentric breeder of flying pigs, winged horses, etc., previously seen in Jones's Dark Lord of Derkholm). Elda becomes fast friends with other new students, among them a rebel dwarf, a penniless crown prince, the Emperor's jinxed half-sister and two youths who must hide their true identities. A newly kindled passion for the great works of magical literature and a shared struggle against such foes as a tyrannical professor and a band of trained assassins deepen the bonds of the students' friendship. One exuberantly inventive adventure follows the next all the way to the pleasing conclusion, in which matches are made, secrets revealed and numerous loose ends tied up. Great fun. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
KLIATT
Jones has been writing about wizards in training for a long time, even before J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter burst onto the scene. In her latest funny fantasy, she tells about a Wizards' University and a likable set of student wizards. One is a griffin named Elda, daughter of the great wizard Derk (hero of Dark Lord of Derkholm, in which he helped defeat forces that had made his world into a magical theme park for tourists from another universe). It's not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy this one, which focuses on the adventures of Elda (who is part human, part eagle, part lion and part cat) and her fellow students. These include a reluctant king's son; an Emir's brother, threatened with assassins if the University admits he is attending; a pirate's daughter; an Emperor's jinxed half-sister; and a dwarf revolutionary. The Wizards' University, meanwhile, has its own problems, including a lack of funds, a hidebound approach to teaching magic, and a professor obsessed with getting to the moon. Assassins and pirates pop up to make trouble, romantic alliances are formed, magical accidents occur, and Elda's family, both griffin and human, eventually shows up to help save the day. This is great entertainment for fantasy fans; Harry Potter's many fans should enjoy it thoroughly. Jones has a wonderfully inventive mind, and amusing details and intriguing characters abound. Here's hoping she continues this series. (Sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm) KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2000, HarperCollins, Greenwillow, 268p, 99-048522, $15.95. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick; September 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 5)
School Library Journal
Gr 6 Up-It has been eight years since Mr. Chesney's Pilgrim Tours ended, and wizard Derk's world is still recovering from the devastation described in Dark Lord of Derkholm (Greenwillow, 1998). Derk's griffin daughter Elda has just begun her studies at Wizard's University, without her father's permission and despite his belief that the university is no place to learn anything. In fact, several members of Elda's class are attending without their families' knowledge, and the misdeeds ensuing from various attempts to retrieve or retaliate against the young wizards provide most of the dramatic thrust for this hilarious ensemble piece. Jones cleverly intertwines elements of humor, fantasy, and character development, as in the case of Crown Prince Lukin, who accidentally makes large holes in the ground whenever he does magic. Lukin's jinx produces some of the book's funniest moments, but it also reveals much about the young man himself. Readers new to the series will enjoy Year of the Griffin without first reading the previous book, though they will certainly want to backtrack to learn more about Elda, her family, and the Pilgrim Tours. The foreshadowing is so deft that the rather complicated climax makes perfect sense, while still leaving plenty of room for another sequel.-Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780064473354
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 8/28/2001
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 400
  • Sales rank: 312,503
  • Age range: 13 - 12 Years
  • Lexile: 0830L (what's this?)
  • Series: Derkholm Series , #2
  • Product dimensions: 4.18 (w) x 6.75 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books were filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. From the very beginning, Diana Wynne Jones’s books garnered literary accolades: her novel Dogsbody was a runner-up for the 1975 Carnegie Medal, and Charmed Life won the esteemed Guardian children’s fiction prize in 1977. Since then, in addition to being translated into more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of honors—including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors—and appeared on countless best-of-the-year lists.

Her work also found commercial success: In 1992 the BBC adapted her novel Archer’s Goon into a six-part miniseries, and her bestselling Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, and became one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history.

Diana Wynne Jones has also been honored with many prestigious awards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on fantasy, received a D.Lit from Bristol University in 2006, and won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.

Born just outside London in 1934, Diana Wynne Jones had a childhood that was “very vivid and often very distressing”—one that became the fertile ground where her tremendous imagination took root. When the raids of World War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger sisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their grandparents. This was to be the first of many migrations, one of which brought her family to Lane Head, a large manor in the author-populated Lake District and former residence of John Ruskin’s secretary, W.G . Collingwood. This time marked an important moment in Diana Wynne Jones’s life, where her writing ambitions were magnified by, in her own words, “early marginal contacts with the Great.” She confesses to having “offending Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat,” erasing a stack of drawings by the late Ruskin himself in order to reuse the paper, and causing Beatrix Potter (who also lived nearby) to complain about her and her sister’s behavior. “It struck me,” Jones said, “that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant, and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.” Prompted by her penny-pinching father’s refusal to buy the children any books, Diana Wynne Jones wrote her first novel at age twelve and entertained her sisters with readings of her stories. Those early stories—and much of her future work—were inspired by a limited but crucial foundation of classics: Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, The Arabian Nights, and Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages.

Fantasy was Jones’s passion from the start, despite receiving little support from her often neglectful parents. This passion was fueled further during her tenure at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, where lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis increased her fascination with myth and legend. She married Medievalist John Burrow in 1956; the couple have three sons and six grandchildren.

After a decade of rejections, Diana Wynne Jones’s first novel, Changeover, was published in 1970. In 1973, she joined forces with her lifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana Wynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single year. Along the way she gained a fiercely loyal following; many of her admirers became successful authors themselves, including Newbery Award winners Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman, and Newbery Honor Book author Megan Whalen Turner. A conference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West England, Bristol, in 2009. Diana Wynne Jones continued to write during her battle with lung cancer, which ultimately took her life in March 2011. Her last book, Earwig and the Witch, was published by Greenwillow Books in 2012.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Nothing was going right with the Wizards' University. When High Chancellor Querida decided that she could not change the world and run the University as well, she took herself and her three cats off to a cottage beside the Waste, leaving the older wizards in charge. The older wizards seized the opportunity to retire. Now, eight years after the tours ended, the University was run by a committee of rather younger wizards, and it was steadily losing money.

For forty years before that, the University had been forced to provide for Mr. Chesney's offworld Pilgrim Parties. Wizards had also been made to provide magical events for the tours. Tourists from the next universe had come in droves every year, expecting to have adventures with elves, dwarfs, dragons, and the powers of darkness, and most years this left the world laid waste. The wizards then had to put it straight for the next year. Mr. Chesney, whose orders were backed by a powerful demon, had been very strict in his requirements, and he had paid for this service in gold. When almost everyone in the world united to put a stop to the Pilgrim Parties, the payments naturally stopped, so it was small wonder that the University was short of funds.

"We need to make the place pay somehow," the Chairman, Wizard Corkoran, said anxiously at the beginning-of-term meeting. "We've raised the student fees again—"

"And got fewer students than ever," Wizard Finn pointed out, although to hear the shouts and the bang and scrape of luggage from the courtyard outside, you would have thought most of the world was currently arriving there.

"Fewer, yes," Corkoran said, looking atthe list by his elbow, "but the ones we have got must all come from very rich families, or they couldn't afford the fees. It stands to reason. I propose we ask these families for money, we could put up a plaque with their names on. People like that."

Wizard Finn shot a look at the lovely Wizard Myrna, who turned down the comers of her shapely mouth. The rest of the committee simply stared at Corkoran with different sorts of blankness. Corkoran was always having ideas, and none of them worked. The students thought Corkoran was wonderful. Many of them imitated his style of wearing an offworld necktie over an offworld T-shirt—both with pictures on-and did their hair like Corkoran in a wavy blond puff brushed back from the forehead. Quite a few of the girl students were in love with him. But then they were only taught by him, Finn thought gloomily. They didn't have to wrestle with his ideas of how to run a university.

"We can't afford a plaque," said Wizard Dench, the Bursar. "Even with all the fees paid, we can only just afford to pay the staff and buy food. We can't afford to mend the roofs."

Wizard Corkoran was used to Dench saying they couldn't afford things. He waved this away. "Then I'll float a commemorating spell " he said. "We can have it circling the Spellman Building or the Observatory tower-transparently, of course, so it won't get in the way." When nobody said anything to this, he added, "I can maintain it in my spare time."

Nobody said anything to this either. They all knew Corkoran never had any spare time. All the time he could spare from teaching—and much that he couldn't spare, too—went to his research on how to get to the moon. The moon was his passion. He wanted to be the first man to walk on it.

"That's settled then," said Corkoran. "Money's bound to pour in. If you just take my first-year tutorial group, you can see the possibilities. Look." He ran a finger down the list beside him. "There's King Luther's eldest son—he's Crown Prince of Luteria, and he'll own all sorts of land—Prince Lukin. And the next one's the sister of Emperor Titus. At least I believe she's his half-sister, but I'm sure we can prevail on the Empire to make a large donation: Then there's a dwarf. We've never had a dwarf before, but they all come from fastnesses stuffed with treasure. And there's this girl Elda. She's the daughter of Wizard Derk, who—"

"Er—" began Finn, who knew Elda quite well.

"Wizard Derk is a wealthy and important man," Corkoran continued. "Did you say something, Finn?"

"Only that Derk doesn't approve of the University," Finn said. It was not what he had been going to say.

"Obviously he changed his mind when he found his daughter had talent" Corkoran said, "or he wouldn't be paying for her to come here. All right. That's agreed then. Myrna, you're married to a bard. You know how to use Powers of Persuasion. You're in charge of sending a letter to the parents of all students who—"

"I,—er,—have another ideal" Wizard Umberto put in from the end of the conference table. Everyone turned to him hopefully. Umberto was quite young, rather fat, and almost never said anything. The general belief was that Umberto was a brilliant astrologer, except that he never said anything about his work. He went pink, seeing them all looking at him, and stammered. "Oh. Er. I think we should, well, you know, be able to set up a scheme to let people pay for magical information. You know, come from miles away to be told secrets."

"Oh, don't be silly, Umberto." said Wizard Wermacht. Wermacht was the youngest wizard there, and very proud of the fact. "You're describing just what we do, anyway."

"But only for students, Wermacht," Umberto stammered shyly. "I thought we could, er, sell everyone horoscopes and so forth."

Table of Contents

First Chapter

Chapter One

Nothing was going right with the Wizards' University. When High Chancellor Querida decided that she could not change the world and run the University as well, she took herself and her three cats off to a cottage beside the Waste, leaving the older wizards in charge. The older wizards seized the opportunity to retire. Now, eight years after the tours ended, the University was run by a committee of rather younger wizards, and it was steadily losing money.

For forty years before that, the University had been forced to provide for Mr. Chesney's offworld Pilgrim Parties. Wizards had also been made to provide magical events for the tours. Tourists from the next universe had come in droves every year, expecting to have adventures with elves, dwarfs, dragons, and the powers of darkness, and most years this left the world laid waste. The wizards then had to put it straight for the next year. Mr. Chesney, whose orders were backed by a powerful demon, had been very strict in his requirements, and he had paid for this service in gold. When almost everyone in the world united to put a stop to the Pilgrim Parties, the payments naturally stopped, so it was small wonder that the University was short of funds.

"We need to make the place pay somehow," the Chairman, Wizard Corkoran, said anxiously at the beginning-of-term meeting. "We've raised the student fees again --"

"And got fewer students than ever," Wizard Finn pointed out, although to hear the shouts and the bang and scrape of luggage from the courtyard outside, you would have thought most of the world was currently arriving there.

"Fewer, yes," Corkoran said, looking at the list by his elbow, "but the ones we have got must all come from very rich families, or they couldn't afford the fees. It stands to reason. I propose we ask these families for money, we could put up a plaque with their names on. People like that."

Wizard Finn shot a look at the lovely Wizard Myrna, who turned down the comers of her shapely mouth. The rest of the committee simply stared at Corkoran with different sorts of blankness. Corkoran was always having ideas, and none of them worked. The students thought Corkoran was wonderful. Many of them imitated his style of wearing an offworld necktie over an offworld T-shirt -- both with pictures on -- and did their hair like Corkoran in a wavy blond puff brushed back from the forehead. Quite a few of the girl students were in love with him. But then they were only taught by him, Finn thought gloomily. They didn't have to wrestle with his ideas of how to run a university.

"We can't afford a plaque," said Wizard Dench, the Bursar. "Even with all the fees paid, we can only just afford to pay the staff and buy food. We can't afford to mend the roofs."

Wizard Corkoran was used to Dench saying they couldn't afford things. He waved this away. "Then I'll float a commemorating spell," he said. "We can have it circling the Spellman Building or the Observatory tower-transparently, of course, so it won't get in the way." When nobody said anything to this, he added, "I can maintain it in my spare time."

Nobody said anything to this either. They all knew Corkoran never had any spare time. All the time he could spare from teaching -- and much that he couldn't spare, too -- went to his research on how to get to the moon. The moon was his passion. He wanted to be the first man to walk on it.

"That's settled then," said Corkoran. "Money's bound to pour in. If you just take my first-year tutorial group, you can see the possibilities. Look." He ran a finger down the list beside him. "There's King Luther's eldest son -- he's Crown Prince of Luteria, and he'll own all sorts of land -- Prince Lukin. And the next one's the sister of Emperor Titus. At least I believe she's his half-sister, but I'm sure we can prevail on the Empire to make a large donation: Then there's a dwarf. We've never had a dwarf before, but they all come from fastnesses stuffed with treasure. And there's this girl Elda. She's the daughter of Wizard Derk, who --"

"Er --" began Finn, who knew Elda quite well.

"Wizard Derk is a wealthy and important man," Corkoran continued. "Did you say something, Finn?"

"Only that Derk doesn't approve of the University," Finn said. It was not what he had been going to say.

"Obviously he changed his mind when he found his daughter had talent" Corkoran said, "or he wouldn't be paying for her to come here. All right. That's agreed then. Myrna, you're married to a bard. You know how to use Powers of Persuasion. You're in charge of sending a letter to the parents of all students who --"

"I, -- er,-- have another idea!" Wizard Umberto put in from the end of the conference table. Everyone turned to him hopefully. Umberto was quite young, rather fat, and almost never said anything. The general belief was that Umberto was a brilliant astrologer, except that he never said anything about his work. He went pink, seeing them all looking at him, and stammered. "Oh. Er. I think we should, well, you know, be able to set up a scheme to let people pay for magical information. You know, come from miles away to be told secrets."

"Oh, don't be silly, Umberto." said Wizard Wermacht. Wermacht was the youngest wizard there, and very proud of the fact. "You're describing just what we do, anyway."

"But only for students, Wermacht," Umberto stammered shyly. "I thought we could, er, sell everyone horoscopes and so forth."

Reading Group Guide

Year of the Griffin


By Diana Wynne Jones


It's been eight years since the Wizards' University was rescued from the last of its Pilgrim Parties -- staged tours where paying participants visited frightening outer realms. But the school's problems are far from over. The buildings are falling apart, the staff and students are disgruntled, and the university is nearly broke. To top it off, the new first-year class includes a runaway prince, a golden griffin, a revolutionary dwarf, and a cast of others who are studying to become wizards while running for their lives. In this exciting sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm, six students must face their darkest fears and try to survive.

About the Author:

Diana Wynne Jones was raised in the village of Thaxted, England. She has been a compulsive storyteller for as long as she can remember, enjoying most ardently those tales dealing with witches, hobgoblins, and the like. She lives in England.

Questions For Discussion:

  1. Each of the six students comes to the University to learn about wizardry, but all but Elda must keep their studies a secret in order to stay out of danger. What risks do Felim, Ruskin, Claudia, Olga, and Lukin each face? Why is it worth it to them to risk the dangers ahead? How are the dangers they face similar?
  2. When Derk pays a visit to his daughter Elda, he explains that the faculty doesn't encourage creative thinking. He advises the students that "for every one way of doing things...there are usually ten more" and to "examine everything you're taught." What does he mean bythis advice? Why is examining what is taught important? When does it hurt the students to do so? Is it worth it to challenge what they have been taught? Why or why not?
  3. When the students attempt to create their own spells to protect Felim from assassins, each puts a piece of himself into the mix. What kind of spell would you create if you needed to protect someone? How would it work and how would it reflect who you are?
  4. By creating their own protection spells, the six students are breaking the University rules. When is it okay to break the rules, and when should they be obeyed? How do you know the difference?
  5. Elda is a griffin, which is a creature that is part eagle, part lion, and part human. Claudia is a mix of the Empire race and Marshfolk race. How does being of mixed-race heritage affect these students? Name an instance where they suffer from discrimination. Name an instance where having diverse backgrounds helps them.
  6. After Elda bravely carries Wizard Corkoran to capture the assassins, he plays the hero without giving her even a word of thanks. Elda aches from the work but also from the hurt of being treated badly by Corkoran. She says she suffers most from disillusionment. What does she mean by this? When have you ever felt disillusioned?
  7. Elda is very close to her parents and her siblings, who bond together to help save the University and their friends. On the other hand, Olga is embarrassed to be related to her father, an evil pirate, although she says she "still loves him, in a twisty sort of way." What does she mean by this? Are there other members of the group who can't get along with their families but still care for them? Why do they feel this way?
  8. After Olga and Lukin pretend to be engaged to make the deal with the dwarfs, Olga is angry with Lukin. Why do you think she is upset? When Lukin can't understand it, what do you think his friends mean by "if you don't know, we can't tell you"?
  9. Wizard Corkoran is never concerned with the effects of the spells or actions he produces -- he's only interested in making time for his own interests. On the other hand, Querida uses her wizardry to fix the problems of the past and make the world habitable again. Discuss how these wizards view their powers differently. How could Corkoran have prevented some of the problems that befell him if he had been more like Querida?
  10. Toward the end, Claudia and Lukin both resolve their jinxes. How do they do it? Do you think people create their own jinxes? Think of a jinx that you have that you might be able to solve by yourself.


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Sort by: Showing all of 14 Customer Reviews
  • Anonymous

    Posted November 11, 2011

    Great sequel!

    Diana Wynne Jones has been one of my favorite fantasy authors since I was very young. This book is a great sequel to the Dark Lord of Derkholm. Once you read one of her books, you will want to read more!

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  • Posted August 22, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    A Wonderful Romp

    I read this book about a thousand times before I bought it. I've always wanted to own it and kept putting it off--but now that I have it, I'm not sorry. The story uses some of the characters from Dark Lord of Derkholm, but it is an entirely different kind of story. Instead of being large and epic, most of the action takes places within the walls of the Wizard's University. In fact, the book is a fairly accurate picture of what goes on at universities, especially for freshmen. And yet at the same time, Diana Wynne Jones manages to weave in magic so that it is an absolutely essential part of the story. If you're looking for a break from fantasy norms that is still grounded in old traditions, this book won't disappoint you.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 3, 2007

    Blew My Expectations Out of the Water

    This book is AWESOME! When I finished 'Dark Lord of Derkholm' I didn't want to read this one. I was so depressed that it was over, and most authors can't pull off the second book. But Diane totally did it! I was mad that this book was only about Elda, I wanted Shona, Blade, Kit, Callette, Lydda, and Derk back! But Diane adds 5 kids that become Elda's friends, and they almost make you forget about the others! To make the book even better all our old friends come back and make appearances! This book is better than the first! I hope there's a sequal?

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 1, 2004

    Jones has done it again!!

    Dyanna Wynne Jones has writen many books, and by far my favorite have been The Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin. Evreything falls together in the plots, as as said before by other reviewers, even the tiny, miniscule details. The part with the assassins is hillarious!! ('You cannot let me drown in orange juice. It is not a manly death'). They show what happened to Kit, Callete, Blade, Don, Lydda, Shona, and even little Elda. It makes me want another sequel, if she wrote one that would be AWESOME!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 23, 2004

    Really Entertaining!!

    I got this book because the Dark Lord of Derkholm was so good. Plus this is also about griffins. It was even better then the first one! It is eight years after Dark Lord of Derkholm and Kit and Blade are some of the most powerful wizards in the world (no surprise there. They always seemed talented.) It is about Derk's griffin daughter Elda and her friends at Wizard's University as they struggle to survive their first year. This book is full of excitement, likeable characters, and it's kind of funny, too. GREAT!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 12, 2004

    This is the best book!!!!!

    this book is even better than the first but the first also has my favorite character Kit they said that the is an adult book but thats only because they used big words. but its still the best book ive read all year

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 9, 2004

    I loved it!

    Diana Wynne Jones is amazing! I had only discovered her books last year, but after reading the Chronicles of Chrestomanci I went looking for more and more of her books! I loved this book and I'm dying for a sequel, or if there is one already, email me and tell me the name of it:).

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 28, 2002

    It pulled me in. And I loved it!

    This book is the perfect sequel to The Dark Lord of Derkholm. It had everything anyone could want in a teen fantasy book: Comedy, A good plot, Great Charectors, Romance, and fantasy things. And it all fell together in the end, every last bit you thought was useless info. Diana Wynne Jones is a great author! Everyone should read this book! *Praise Diana!* Email me if you share my feelings about this book.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2002

    best book i've read

    This is the best book, fantasy or otherwise, I have ever read . The ending was good and left me waiting for a sequal . The details were amaizing . And in the end, all those little details you never thought would be used fell together like a completed puzzle .

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 4, 2009

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 30, 2010

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 20, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 26, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

Sort by: Showing all of 14 Customer Reviews

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