Another two book spectacular.

"Eyeballs-in-salsa Pirie kids," they heard Buster say. They knew it was Buster, because his voice was louder and his language nastier than any of the others. "Always got some puke-crusted idea or other."

Swearing gets creative to get past the filters in Wilkin's Tooth by Diana Wynne Jones

In honour (and to complete two in-progress books) of Diana Wynne Jones, tonight I read Wilkin's Tooth (also known as Witch's Business) and The Time of The Ghost, both by Diana Wynne Jones. Obvsly.

They're both somewhat dark tales, though Time of the Ghost is a lot darker. Well, Wilkin's Tooth only gets dark towards the end, when the stakes suddenly jump a lot higher.

I'll tell you about 'em in order. First off, Wilkin's Tooth was her first children's novel, published in 1973. I had to look that up, because my only clue that it wasn't a more recent one was the fact that ten pence was apparently a lot of money to the main characters, Jess and Frank Pirie. That's something I've always liked about her books, you have to look hard to figure out where they're dated. There was, unfortunately, one other aspect of that book that didn't belong in this time and it was the slurs the kids used about the mentally ill.

However, to the credit of the book it's established that their parents are very much against the children using this language, and the mentally ill portrayed in the book seem to just be people, not parodies. Oh crap, I forgot. The weird smoking Aunt character calls the West Indies boy 'Shadow', but she's portrayed as pretty much a twit. With that out of the way, let me talk about what I enjoyed about this book.

First: Jess Pirie, one of the two main characters, was excellent. She was smart, acknowledged as smart by the other characters, and in a very realistic way. Second, as you can guess from the second title the book had, there was magic in this book. And it was good magic. Well, actually it was bad magic but I felt it was well-written magic. The titular witch is a nasty piece of work, and seeing what she'd do next was half the fun of the book.

The plot: Jess and Frank Pirie broke a chair and now they have no money for the summer. Jess wants money to spend time out with her friends, and Frank owes the local bully, Buster Knell, ten pence. So they decide to start their own business, 'Own Back' where they'll seek revenge for you... for a price. They hope their first customer asks them to go after Buster, but unfortunately HE'S their first client. He lost a tooth to Vernon Wilkins and wants one back in exchange. Vernon has a better idea, and gives the kids his little brother's loose tooth. Unfortunately, then a witch gets involved and things snowball from there.

If you can stomach the problems I listed above, it's a really great book. Unfortunately out of print, however.

NEXT: Time Of The Ghost

Thoughts: Another book with a girl as the main narrator, Time of the Ghost was a fairly cool little ghost story. But oh man, the father? Completely loathsome. The book was very very good at getting this across, to the point where he almost overshadowed the evil goddess. Oh yeah, there's an evil goddess in this.

Plot: There's a ghost and there's four sisters. The ghost is pretty sure she's one of the four sisters, but she has no idea which one and time is running out.

Features: animal sacrifice, ghosts, big dogs, and a really cool scene with a burial mound, and quite the mystery. Really distinct characters too. It was genuinely disturbing in a lot of parts, but I wouldn't hesitate to give this to a kid. Although maybe not my tiny step-brother, I'm still in trouble for the time I accidentally convinced him Cthulhu was real.

I definitely think this one should be read. Diana Wynne Jones was an amazing author, we've lost a lot with her passing. Cancer can go straight to hell.