Edward Eager (1911–1964)

My kids and I continue to love Edward Eager's books. In this one, I especially enjoyed playing with the Natterjack's accent while reading aloud, and all of the time/thyme puns. I also love the eye-rolling the other kids in the story do in response to Jack's budding teenager-ness and the intersection of this story with those in other classics (and with Eager's Magic by the Lake) and with historical events. The premise is pretty much the same as in the other books---the kids discover an "in" show more to magic, they have to either figure out or make up the rules to the magic, they break the rules and all heck breaks loose, they learn some character lesson, they exhaust the magic, and the story's done. I can't figure out why I don't find this formula tiring yet. I'm just glad I don't because my daughter's not at all tired of the books yet.

With all the Nesbit-worship in Eager's books, I really need to read something of Nesbit's in addition to Five Children and It. We tried The Book of Dragons a few years ago, but my daughter seems to be very particular about the type of fantasy story she'll accept, and she didn't get into that one. show less

I still love this book, though I think I love it a little less than I did when I read it as a kid. As a kid, I could blithely skim over the racism and mild sexism in the book and enjoy it for the wonderful fantastical journey that it was. As an adult, I find it harder to excuse the caricatures of non-white side characters, even given that the book was written in 1954. It wasn't called out in that era, but that didn't make it right, and while I would still recommend this as a fun book for show more kids I would also highly recommend that their parents read alongside them and discuss the problematic parts.

However. The plot is still a ton of fun, and I loved revisiting the ways that the children got themselves in trouble by getting only half of their wishes. The art was included in my ebook version, and I loved seeing that again, too. One interesting point I noticed: I found myself interpreting the “this took place thirty years ago” in the opener to be thirty years from when I first read it in the mid-to-late eighties, not thirty years before now, or thirty years from when it was written. I wonder when in time new readers coming to this book would mentally place this book? show less

"The adventures that are written down in books have already been. If we try to horn in on them, we'd just be tagging along. So we have to make our own adventures."

Well, I gotta say, revisiting this classic children's fantasy book was quite a big adventure for me—in large part because finding the book took decades.

It's one of the first fantasy books I read as a child. A checkout from the library. But in the years that followed, when I wanted to find the book again, I couldn't remember the show more title. I couldn't remember the author's name. I couldn't remember the plot. I had no idea what year or decade the book was published in, especially given that pretty much all books are new-to-you when you're a little kid.

I only remembered one of the illustrations inside, along with the reddish book cover but not the cover art exactly, and most of all, I remembered how much I liked the story...whatever it was about.

So. It took combing through books and books of vintage fantasy KidLit, hoping to come across a reddish cover that might ring a bell in my unclear memory. Even once I found a blurry thumbnail image of the cover and took a chance to buy a newer edition with different cover art, I still wasn't 100% sure I'd ordered the right book.

Not until I received it, flipped through it, and found the one inside illustration I remembered.

I wound up making my own dust jacket for the book, using a high-res copy of the old, reddish cover image because every element of the artwork on it is such a significant reflection of the story.

A story in which the main characters discover the significance of a certain shabby, red book. A library checkout. Even though they can't make out the book's title—much like my memory couldn't.

Wowzers. I enjoyed rediscovering the oddness, the humor, and the delightfulness of this old-fashioned tale.

Granted, not everything I now recognized as an adult was a pleasure to find, namely the two instances of dated slurs in the book. (i.e., "gyps" and "Indian giver")

However, it was satisfying to recognize more of the influences that factor into the story, like that of George MacDonald and Wordsworth. And I appreciate the way the tale speaks to the magic of books. show less

Although it's listed as Book #5 of the "Tales of Magic" series, this book features all new characters and no cameos from the children from the other books at all.

I have the sense that Eager really hit his stride with this book. It flows more smoothly from chapter to chapter, and the adventures in the story link together better than in the previous four books. I loved the other four, but this one is just more tightly written and more satisfying to me. My daughter enjoyed it, too. She's not a show more huge fan of fantasy---she's a very practical almost-eight-year-old (perhaps too practical)---and I think there was great appeal for her in the fact that "magic or not?" remained a question throughout the book. Everything that happens to the children can be explained without magic...but then, it can all be explained magically, too. This ambiguity was delicious, to use my daughter's word (her word is "delicious" not "ambiguous"; she's quite precocious but I don't think she's learned that particular word yet). My daughter says she likes Magic or Not? about the same as the other books, but it may well be my favorite of the bunch, so far.

One more book left in the "Tales of Magic" series. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll also be sad to say goodbye to the books. I've tried to get my daughter into Edith Nesbit's books since the children in Eager's books like them so much, but aside from Five Children and It, she shows no interest. She says they're, "BOR-ING!" And this is the kid who reads field guides for fun. I don't really get it. Luckily, there are plenty of children's classics to read after we finish Book #6. show less