The Ogre Downstairs
Diana Wynne Jones at her finest – family feuds and chaos, magic with hilarious results and some of the most original ideas ever to appear between the covers of a book.
Casper, Johnny and Gwinny get a big shock when their mother Sally marries the Ogre. He is large and stern and not at all interested in children. His first wife left him years before – and the children aren't in the least bit surprised, considering what the Ogre and his two sons, Douglas and Malcolm, are like. Now the five children and two adults are squashed under the same roof, it's not surprising tensions are running high. Then the Ogre brings home the Chemistry Sets – one for Malcolm and one for Johnny. That's when the fun begins, as each side of the family discovers that these are no ordinary chemistry sets...
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Diana Wynne Jones
Long before fantasy became mainstream, Diana Wynne Jones was quietly rewriting its rules—building magical worlds that felt both whimsical and wise, mischievous and deeply human. Her stories didn’t just sparkle with enchantment; they carried a quiet intelligence that dared young readers to think deeper, look sideways, and always expect the unexpected.
Born in London in 1934, Jones grew up amid wartime evacuations and an often-chaotic household—experiences that would later inform the strange, shifting families and fractured realities in her fiction. She studied English at Oxford under tutors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, though she later remarked she learned more by not imitating them. Instead, she carved out her own voice: lyrical but grounded, funny but never flippant, magical yet steeped in emotional truth.
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