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Witch Week 2016-02-29

Witch Week is set in an alternate modern-day England, identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death by burning, policed by a modern-day Inquisition. At Larwood House, a boarding school where many of the children of executed witches are sent, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by a teacher. This launches an internal investigation of the more unpopular students at the school (Nan Pilgrim and Charles Morgan), who are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they are witches. Mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and other pranks. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, leaving notes that blame the witch for controlling him. The headmistress of the school calls in an Inquisitor to find the missing student and locate the source of the trouble. Four more of the students flee the school and two seek help from an "underground railroad" system that is known to save witches by sending them to a world where they are not persecuted. Instead they are given a spell to summon unknown help and all five students converge where they are able to use it, summoning the enchanter Chrestomanci. He and the children conclude that their world diverged from 12B (ours) by a particular historical accident. They work to outwit the local inquisition and to merge their history, thus their world, with ours. It turns out that most of the schoolchildren are witches and all must lose any such powers by revising history in that way.

- Umesh

which week 2016-02-29

witch Week is set in an alternate modern-day England, identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death by burning, policed by a modern-day Inquisition. At Larwood House, a boarding school where many of the children of executed witches are sent, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by a teacher. This launches an internal investigation of the more unpopular students at the school (Nan Pilgrim and Charles Morgan), who are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they are witches. Mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and other pranks. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, leaving notes that blame the witch for controlling him. The headmistress of the school calls in an Inquisitor to find the missing student and locate the source of the trouble. Four more of the students flee the school and two seek help from an "underground railroad" system that is known to save witches by sending them to a world where they are not persecuted. Instead they are given a spell to summon unknown help and all five students converge where they are able to use it, summoning the enchanter Chrestomanci. He and the children conclude that their world diverged from 12B (ours) by a particular historical accident. They work to outwit the local inquisition and to merge their history, thus their world, with ours. It turns out that most of the schoolchildren are witches and all must lose any such powers by revising history in that way.

- Archit

Witch Week (The Chrestomanci Series, Book 3) (English) by Diana Wynne Jones 2016-08-03

Witch Week is set in an alternate modern-day England, identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death by burning, policed by a modern-day Inquisition. At Larwood House, a boarding school where many of the children of executed witches are sent, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by a teacher. This launches an internal investigation of the more unpopular students at the school (Nan Pilgrim and Charles Morgan), who are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they are witches. Mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and other pranks. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, leaving notes that blame the witch for controlling him. The headmistress of the school calls in an Inquisitor to find the missing student and locate the source of the trouble. Four more of the students flee the school and two seek help from an "underground railroad" system that is known to save witches by sending them to a world where they are not persecuted. Instead they are given a spell to summon unknown help and all five students converge where they are able to use it, summoning the enchanter Chrestomanci. He and the children conclude that their world diverged from 12B (ours) by a particular historical accident. They work to outwit the local inquisition and to merge their history, thus their world, with ours. It turns out that most of the schoolchildren are witches and all must lose any such powers by revising history in that way. Witch Week is a children's fantasy novel and school story by the British writer Diana Wynne Jones, published by Macmillan Children's Books in 1982. It was the third published of seven Chrestomanci books.[4] Witch Week is set during the last four days of October 1981 at Larwood House, a boarding school in southern England, in a world parallel and close to ours. Many people have magical powers ("witches", male or female) but their use is a capital crime and convicted witches are burnt to death. The story begins with a teacher's discovery of an ambiguous note and dilemma whether to take it as a joke. "The note said: SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH."

- akash