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Black Maria

by Diana Wynne Jones (Author), Ursula Jones (Reader)

2 ratings

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On the surface, Aunt Maria seems like a cuddly old lady, all chit-chat and lace doilies and unadulterated NICEness!

When Mig and her family go for a short visit, they soon learn that Aunt Maria rules the place with a rod of sweetness that’s tougher than iron and deadlier than poison. Life revolves around tea parties, while the men are all grey-suited zombies who fade into the background, and the other children seem like clones.

The short visit becomes a long stay, and when all talk of going home ceases, Mig despairs! Things go from bad to worse when Mig’s brother Chris tries to rebel, but is changed into a wolf .

Mig is convinced that Aunt Maria must be a witch – but who will believe her? It’s up to Mig to figure out what’s going on. Maybe the ghost who haunts the downstairs bedroom holds the key?

Product details

Audio Cassette
Publisher: HarperCollins; Unabridged edition edition (5 March 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0007113870
ISBN-13: 978-0007113873
Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 1.8 x 13.9 cm
Boxed-product Weight: 118 g
Average Customer Review: 2 customer reviews

Product description

Review

“Truly magical – guaranteed to leave you gasping – even hotter than Potter”
The Bookseller

From the Back Cover

Great Aunt Maria seems like a cuddly old lady, all chit-chat and lace doilies and unadulterated NICEness!

But when Mig and her family go for a visit, they soon learn that Aunt Maria rules Cranbury -on -Sea with a rod of sweetness that's tougher than iron and deadlier than poison. Life revolves around women's tea parties, while grey-suited men behave like zombies, and clone-like children fade into the background.

Mig is convinced that Aunt Maria must be a witch, but who will believe her? Maybe the ghost who haunts the downstairs bedroom holds the key…?

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Tina Le

Amazing mystery. Deep and heartwarming.

21 October 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A marvelously heartwarming book with plenty of laugh out loud moments and heartbreaking scenes. Some interesting commentary on sexism, gender roles and needing to allow people to make their own decisions. Mig is a funny, brave and engaging protagonist, and I liked her banter and affection towards her brother Chris and her mother.

Trigger warning: Black Maria has some disturbing scenes of children being manipulated, trapped and intimidated by the antagonists.

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Auntie dearest

18 January 2015

Format: Kindle Edition

Everyone has one -- an older relative who disapproves of you unless you do what she wishes, and isn't nearly as nice as she pretends to be.

But "Black Maria" turns out to be even worse than your average annoying relative, in this engaging, humourous and chilling fantasy novel. Diana Wynne-Jones spins a fantastical story of witchcraft and revenge, all centering on the elderly lady who sweetly lords it over Cranbury-on-Sea.

After her father is apparently killed in a car accident, Mig and her family go to stay with Aunt Maria, mainly because her mother feels guilty. Aunt Maria is very prim and very sweet, and makes a point of guilting people into doing what she wants. Life revolves around Aunt Maria's tea parties, and the men and children act like automatons.

Mig and her brother Chris hate it there, despite the sad ghost who appears in Chris's room. But they start to suspect that magic may be at work, and that Aunt Maria may be at the center of it. When Chris annoys her, she transforms him into a wolf. Now Mig must uncover a magical plot that stretches back over the decades -- and is the key to dethroning Aunt Maria.

It's hard enough to deal with such elderly, sickly-sweet relatives if they are normal. Imagine if they are cold-hearted witches, who turn their own daughters into wolves. And if Diana Wynne-Jones was trying to make people feel lucky for not having an Aunt Maria, then she succeeds beautifully.

Jones paints a chilling picture of Cranbury -- sort of a "Stepford Wives" situation, except it's Stepford Husbands and Kids, all slaves to the stifling sweetness of Aunt Maria. The one weak spot is the ending -- it's not a terribly bad ending, but it is kind of weak, especially compared to the quiet menace of the past several chapters.

Mig is a likable character, although her rebellious brother Chris comes across as the more engaging of the main characters, and readers might want to kick her meek, submissive mother. Aunt Maria is the most frighteningly real, from her outdated opinions to her pushy sweetness; she's horrified at girls wearing pants, eating fish'n'chips for dinner, and favors boys over girls. Even worse, she genuinely believes that she is a wonderful person.

Take the most irritating old lady imaginable... and give her evil magic powers. That's the chilling picture painted in "Black Maria," which will make readers intensely grateful that they aren't Chris and Mig.

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Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com

Amazon.com: 4 reviews

Alyssa B. Goss

Black Maria

3 May 2013 - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

I've read in "Reflections" that Diana Wynne Jones actually waited to publish this book because she found it too scary. I didn't find it frightening but then I didn't run across it until I was in my early twenties. The characters are very convincing though. Most books that deal with an "Issue" begin to feel dated but this one is still great even after 20 years. One of my favorite features of Jones's writing is how she makes every member of a family an interesting character. So many books targeted towards teens and children turn the parents into non-entities, Jones has the adults participate right alongside the teens and her books are richer for it. I wouldn't call this book Diana Wynne Jones's best book, but it does feature what it perhaps her best, most realistic, antagonist and is well worth looking into even if you're an adult.

One person found this helpful

A. Boyce

Another classic.

3 June 2015 - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

Can anyone tell a story like Diana Wynne Jones?

E. A. Solinas

Auntie dearest

4 April 2011 - Published on Amazon.com

2 people found this helpful

K J

Maria by another name.

8 June 2007 - Published on Amazon.com

Note: "Black Maria" is the original title for the book later published as "Aunt Maria."

After her father is killed in a car accident, Nan and what's left of her family are invited to spend the school holiday with their paternal Aunt Maria. Nan thinks it's a bad idea to stay with her father's relatives, particularly the one who raised him, but her mother feels sorry for the helpless old woman and accepts. Far from being helpless, the aunt is ludicrously particular and demanding of the mom, adores Nan, and shows an instant (and mutually reciprocated) loathing for Nan's brother. But other than that everything is pretty dull (the vacation, not the story). And then Nan and her brother discover their father's car in a parking lot when it's supposed to have crashed into the ocean, an anonymous green ghost appears in a bedroom, and a lot of people seem obsessed with finding and/or hiding a small box. The children realize something very strange is afoot.

Nan's brother gets an idea as to what that could be, but he won't let Nan help him. And then he disappears, and their mother doesn't notice even when he's been gone for several days, and Aunt Maria takes a sudden keen interest in Nan's activities.

Nan wants to find out what's going on and get her family back to normal. To do that, she first must solve a mystery dating back to events twenty years before--a mystery for which she has precious few clues to go on. The townspeople won't help--they're either against her, or too afraid to fight what they know she's up against. And all the while she has to dodge around Aunt Maria's prying, meddling, seriously menacing curiosity.

It's all really quite fun. I particularly like the way Jones throws out clues that seem so slender they don't seem to be clues at all, puts Nan into truly dangerous situations (all the scarier for the fact that in a village full of people our heroine cannot appeal to *anybody* for help), makes the story seem like there is no way on earth it can ever work out--and then executes such a series of brilliant twists and startling turns that suddenly when you find everything has come out more or less right after all it's a real unexpected pleasure. The book by turns tragic, dark, exciting, dramatic, and funny (sometimes all at the same time). And yet everything is totally plausible and entertaining.

Nan is a quiet, intelligent heroine--she understands people, and is not impressed or fooled by appearances. As she works to save her brother and mother and maybe even a whole town (all the while tossing out funny, spot-on observations about the people she meets), there is always the unspoken acceptance in her mind that whatever happens, there can be no completely happy ending--only the right one. She's right, too, and I like her all the more for it.

7 people found this helpful