Chrestomanci, a powerful enchanter and possessor of nine lives, prevails throughout the four short stories included in Mixed Magics. The stories take place in an alternate universe, previously encountered in Witch Week (Greenwillow, 1982) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (Greenwillow, 1988). The universe of this book is similar to the one we know, but it’s vastly different when it comes to the subject of magic. In “Warlock at the Wheel,” the funniest of the tales, a fugitive warlock attempts to escape from Chrestomanci’s world, only to be waylaid by a precocious bully of a child, who makes him yearn for the prison sentence he faced back home. Cat Chant must overcome his resentment of a potential rival, when together the two confront the malevolent “Stealer of Souls.” Along with “Carol Oneir’s Hundredth Dream” and “The Sage of Theare,” these stories offer a welcome foray into Diana Wynne Jones’s intricately realized magical world. (Ages 9–12)