Diana Wynne Jones has mentioned in her essays that she did not much care for series writing. A complete story can be told in a book, and that’s that. If you see a sequel, or a continuation of some sort, you will see it is because the story has picked up with another character, perhaps with characters in the previous story tied onto the thread.

This is what makes the Chrestomanci Series so unique. In some stories, he is the main protagonist. In others, he does not show up until the last couple of chapters, or even the last few pages. Chrestomanci is always a presence, a force: a solution to whatever problem the protagonists, the actual main characters, are battling.

Take “Sage of Theare,” one of the stories in Mixed Magics. Chrestomanci shows up for a moment in the middle of the story to place the protagonist safe, and then returns in the last few pages to help the protagonist face off with the gods. In Witch Week, the third book in the series. Chrestomanci doesn’t arrive until the end of Chapter 11 (there are fifteen chapters total). He’s not even mentioned before that. In this upside-down world of bountiful magic and witch-burning, his name has been kept secret as the last resort among the magic underground. Chased by police, some young witches manage to uncover his name and bring him into their world. Only he can right the tear their world has suffered. The feud of two families in The Magicians of Caprona causes widespread magical problems, especially for the children; because Chrestomanci was met briefly in the first half of the story, the children know to acquire his help in the last few chapters of the book.

In other stories, Chrestomanci is present throughout, but he is still not THE primary character. Charmed Life and Pinhoe Egg are terrific examples of this; plus, they have the same protagonist: the boy Cat Chant. I’ve written about Charmed Life before, that because we experience the story from Cat’s perspective, we originally perceive Chrestomanci as the antagonist (this, of course, is proved otherwise). In Pinhoe Egg, Cat and a girl in the village are doing their best to solve the problem and only involve Chrestomanci as necessary.

And then, of course, Chrestomanci gets to be the star in his stories (finally!). I am NOT always a fan of prequels—as the comedian Patton Oswalt said (without the cussing): “I don’t care where the stuff I love comes from. I just love the stuff I love!” However, The Lives of Christopher Chant satisfies on many levels: yes, we learn how this kid Chris became the Chrestomanci. But we also learn where he met his wife, why he is so obsessed with fashion, and the difficult coming of age he had to experience while being exploited by his family. Conrad’s Fate, though written almost twenty years after Lives, returns readers to Chrestomanci’s youth. Yes, Conrad is THE main character, but Chrestomanci is a teenage boy with him, off to become servants in a bizarre house. Why is Chrestomanci there? Because his childhood friend (and budding sweetheart) is lost somewhere in that house, and he’s NOT going to lose her.

It strikes me now that on the one hand, it’s strange Chrestomanci can’t be a star player in his own series unless he’s young. But then, these are stories for the young. The young, therefore, must be in the spotlight. And considering how so many children’s stories portray adults as stupid, evil, or willfully unhelpful, it’s refreshing to see there is an adult, odd as he is, who listens to children, wants to help, and actually does it. In style.

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