His magic is wild and thrilling - and sometimes off-putting, as the narrative voice of Half Magic explains in a manifesto for the series: “When you have magic powers and know it, it can be a fine feeling, like a pleasant tingling inside. Out of puns, misunderstandings, and deep allusions, Eager twisted a total of seven witty, rompy, madcap-mishappy books called collectively the Tales of Magic. Carrie’s talk is both disturbing and delightful, the hallmark of a writer dancing through the eternal battle between moral lessons of discipline (perhaps the children’s literature scorned by weary souls) vs. A half-articulate cat would speak like Caliban, cursing her enchanter. It turns out that the talisman grants only half a wish at a time - a lesson hard learned as the four children in the book watch half a house fire and see a neighbor’s iron Scottie dog come half alive. No one could be more surprised when Carrie the cat stops meowing and starts making half-recognizable sounds, but somehow the result makes perfect sense: This is how a cat would speak, or almost speak, if her enchantress managed to get a job only half done. One of his lonely little-girl characters, a girl who doesn’t realize she has a magic token, let alone how it works, has wished aloud that her cat might speak and keep her company. In situ, that string of nonsense syllables stems from a rookie mistake - but not Eager’s. Then I collapsed, caught my breath, and began again.The kids of Half Magic on the porch. White’s The Once and Future King (also affectionately mentioned in Half Magic), but Eager’s book featured more comedy in a shorter span of time, so I was left holding my breath through certain passages, in the hope that I might make it just a little further before my eyes watered so much as to make the text illegible. The last book to affect me this way was T.H. But the best part is this: while reading Half Magic, I found it hard to get through more than a few pages at a time because I could not stop laughing out loud. The narrator’s voice and the enchanting plot also tip their hats toward Nesbit, and upon finishing the book, I found myself with two very compatible desires: I wanted to read more Nesbit, and I wanted more Eager as well. Eager’s characters are as warm, quirky, and fallible as Nesbit’s Bastable or railway children, but they feel less like carbon copies than like well-crafted, energetic homages to her characters.

Half magic by edward eager