We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(1) Sea Level
Oh man, Howl's Moving Castle is a great, easy read—as a book for kids written in 1986, everything about it is (mostly) contemporary and (totally) understandable. Sure Diana Wynne Jones definitely belongs to the show-don't-tell model of storytelling—she has faith that we can figure out each character's feelings and motivations largely based on their behavior, as opposed to spelling it all out for us in easy pieces—but even so, her portrayal of her characters' reactions is so clear that we find it straightforward (and satisfying) to follow their emotional developments.