書名：Charmed Life 美麗人生/魔法生活—剋裏斯托曼奇曆代記1
難度：Lexile藍思閱讀指數720
作者：Diana Wynne Jones戴安娜·韋恩·瓊斯
齣版社名稱：HarperCollins
齣版時間：2009
語種：英文
ISBN：9780007255290
商品尺寸：13 x 2.1 x 19.7 cm
包裝：平裝
頁數：288

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci《剋裏斯托曼奇曆代記》係列是英國幻想文學大師戴安娜·韋恩·瓊斯繼“哈爾的移動城堡”係列外又一膾炙人口的作品。這本Charmed Life《美麗人生》正是“剋裏斯托曼奇曆代記”的首部麯，又譯作《剋裏斯托曼奇曆代記1—魔法生活》。本書為英文版，適閤9歲及以上有一定英文基礎的兒童或青少年閱讀。
推薦理由：
1.瓊斯代錶作之一，榮獲衛報兒童圖書奬、德國讀書老鼠奬及英國卡內基兒童學奬提名；
2.故事糅閤瞭魔法、幽默、歡樂及動人的真理，很適閤孩子或青少年閱讀；
3.英文原版，印刷清晰，字體較大，閱讀舒適。
Winner of the Guardian Award.
Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones classic award-winning favourite, featuring Chrestomanci—now a book with extra bits!
Review
“... Her hallmarks include laugh-aloud humour, plenty of magic and imaginative array of alternate worlds. Yet, at the same time, a great seriousness is present in all of her novels, a sense of urgency that links Jones’s most outrageous plots to her readers’ hopes and fears...”—Publishers Weekly“Truly magical—guaranteed to leave you gasping—even hotter than Potter”—The Bookseller
“Diana Wynne Jones could teach Stephen King and JK Rowling a thing or two ... [she] has a skill for inserting just the right amount of detail in her written words, leaving you satiated but not stuffed.”—SFX

卡特崇拜姐姐格溫多琳，甚至不介意生活在魔法天分頗強的姐姐的陰影之下，也不在乎被姐姐施法摺騰。畢竟在父母遭遇意外過世之後，姐姐是他的親人。所有的麻煩都從姐姐給剋裏斯托曼奇寄去信件開始，姐弟倆離開故鄉，成為擁有強大魔法的剋裏斯托曼奇的被監護人。剋裏斯托曼奇城堡中的生活不盡如人意，煩心事一樁接一樁。然而，任何問題都比不上格溫多琳忽然做齣的某個驚人之舉，讓卡特的生活齣現瞭翻天覆地的變化。
Everybody says that Gwendolyn Chant is a gifted witch with astonishing powers, so it suits her enormously when she is taken to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Her brother Eric (better known as Cat) is not so keen, for he has no talent for magic at all.
However, life with the great enchanter is not what either of them expects and sparks begin to fly!

戴安娜?韋恩?瓊斯（1934－2011）英國幻想小說作傢，寫作幻想小說已有三十多個年頭。憑藉漫無邊際的想象力，她的故事糅閤瞭精彩的情節，熱情的幽默感，和動人的真理，為各年齡層的讀者所喜歡。她的作品受到國際褒奬並獲得瞭一係列榮譽，包括兩次“波士頓環球報號角書奬”以及英國幻想協會卡爾?愛德華?瓦格納奬——以肯定她在幻想文學領域的重大影響。日本動畫傢宮崎駿改編瞭《哈爾的移動城堡》，拍攝成一部動漫電影，獲得瞭奧斯卡奬提名。
Diana Wynne Jones has been writing outstanding fantasy novels for more than thirty years and is one of the most distinguished writers in this field. With unlimited imagination, she combines dazzling plots, an effervescent sense of humor, and emotional truths in stories that delight readers of all ages. Her books, published to international acclaim, have earned a wide array of honors, including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors, the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy, and the World Fantasy Society Lifetime Achievement Award. Acclaimed director and animator Hayao Miyazaki adapted her international bestsellerHowl’s Moving Castleinto a major motion picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Cat Chant admired his elder sister Gwendolen. She was a witch. He admired her and he clung to her. Great changes came about in their lives and left him no one else to cling to.
The first great change came about when their parents took them out for a day trip down the river in a paddle steamer. They set out in great style, Gwendolen and her mother in white dresses with ribbons, Cat and his father in prickly blue-serge Sunday suits. It was a hot day. The steamer was crammed with other people in holiday clothes, talking, laughing, eating whelks with thin slices of white bread and butter, while the paddle boat steam organ wheezed out popular tunes so that no one could hear themselves talk.
In fact the steamer was too crowded and too old. Something went wrong with the steering. The whole laughing, whelk-eating, Sunday-dressed crowd was swept away in the current from the dam. They hit one of the posts which were supposed to stop people being swept away, and the paddle steamer, being old, simply broke into pieces. Cat remembered the organ playing and the paddles beating the blue sky.
Clouds of steam screamed from broken pipes and drowned the screams from the crowd, as every single person aboard was swept away through the dam. It was a terrible accident. The papers called it the Saucy Nancy Disaster. The ladies in their clinging skirts were quite unable to swim. The men in tight blue serge were very little better off. But Gwendolen was a witch, so she could not drown. And Cat, who flung his arms around Gwendolen when the boat hit the post, survived too. There were very few other survivors.
The whole country was shocked by it. The paddle boat company and the town of Wolvercote between them paid for the funerals. Gwendolen and Cat were given heavy black clothes at public expense, and rode behind the procession of hearses in a carriage pulled by black horses with black plumes on their heads. The other survivors rode with them. Cat looked at them and wondered if they were witches and warlocks, but he never found out. The Mayor of Wolvercote had set up a Fund for the survivors. Money poured in from all over the country. All the other survivors took their share and went away to start new lives elsewhere. Only Cat and Gwendolen were left and, since nobody could discover any of their relations, they stayed in Wolvercote.