The children quickly realize that they only need to wish for things twice, or in double proportions, to have their wishes granted properly. And when Martha wishes (in what is still my favourite chapter) that Carrie-the-Cat can talk, she begins to spit out a weird, barely-comprehensible gibberish (“Fitzsilence fitzgolden!”). And when Mark wishes he were on a desert island, he ends up in the Saharan desert (desert yes, island no). So when Jane wishes, out of summer-day boredom, that there would be a fire, a neighbouring kid’s dollhouse is set ablaze. The magic consists of an ancient talisman, disguised as a nickel, which turns out to grant (surprise!) half-wishes. Martha was the youngest, and very difficult. This will give you some idea of what Jane and Katharine were like. And the others knew she was, too, by now, because ever since that day Katharine would keep boasting about what a comfort she was, and how docile, until Jane declared she would utter a piercing shriek and fall over dead if she heard another word about it. She knew she was a comfort, and docile, because she’d heard her mother say so. Katharine was the middle girl, of docile disposition and a comfort to her mother. Jane was the oldest and Mark was the only boy, and between them they ran everything. Here is the best character-introduction passage ever: In Half Magic, Jane, Mark, Katharine and Martha are children growing up in the 1920s (as we can infer from the illustrations, the fact that they go to see a silent movie, and by the book’s publication date). While the children’s goal is ultimately adventure and amusement, a more pressing, important task or quest-coming to the aid of one of the clueless adults, usually-reveals itself near the end of the book. They have to learn the magic’s rules and boundaries, sometimes guided by an enigmatic Psammead-like figure, all the while keeping it hidden from the clueless adults in their lives.

A group of four or five children (usually siblings or cousins), living a humdrum small-town or suburban life, stumble upon some kind of wish-granting magic. Nesbit’s, and he shamelessly borrows her storytelling formula. Eager packs his text with literary and cultural references, but you don’t need to have read Saki or Shakespeare or Sir Walter Scott… you just feel like you’re missing something if you haven’t.Įager’s novels are a direct homage to E. Except much funnier, and not pretentious, and you don’t have to find a dictionary or study the footnotes. Reading an Edward Eager book is a bit like reading a T.S.

Half magic by edward eager