So You Want to Be A Wizard

This is a book from the eighties, but I just discovered it. It was hard for me to read about wizards having grown up with Harry Potter. I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter series, so it was a struggle to read this book and ignore my other experiences in J.K. Rowling's wizarding world. That and that fact that I'm afraid I'm becoming a "quote whore" and not saying anything bad about the books I'm writing about. That being said, this book was good. It was a lot different than a lot of the books I read from our current decade, but that doesn't make it bad. It definitely reminded me of Madeline L'Engle (who was one of my favorite authors when I was younger!).

Summary: Nita finds a career book in the library about becoming a wizard. Reading the oath the book opens this new world up to her. She meets Kit, who has had a similar experience and together they try a spell. "There are no accidents" and the spell doesn't go as planned. They call up a magical being, "Fred", who tells them that the Book of Night with Mood, the one thing that holds the universe together, has disappeared. Together the three must save it and save their world!

Other: This is a classic good vs. evil story. I really enjoyed it, although it seemed a bit didactic at some points (the point is that you have to give bad people the opportunity to change or else they are trapped being a bad person). Since it is something that is part of my life, I feel like I have to say something about Christianity. I think that the involvement with magic in this novel is much more real than in the Harry Potter series, but it also has a good message. As long as parents talk to their kids, I don't see this book being a threat to Christianity.

Favorite Parts:
1. Kit makes friends with a mean car, who is pretty much the Rambo of living cars.
2. Nita does a spell so that nothing will hit her before some girls beat her up. She pretends to be in pain, but as the girls walk away she jumps up and tells them to never hit her again.
3. Nita talks to the old tree in her backyard!
4. Nita and Kit meet a parrot who can tell the future.
5. Fred blows his quanta to save the world.