The Magic Misfits

I’m one of those peo­ple that often reads a celebri­ty-writ­ten book because I’d like to find one that defies the odds. How about you? Did you get over the won­der­ing at a cer­tain point? Or do you still give a new star-pow­ered book a try?

Sad­ly, I don’t often find a celebri­ty book I can rec­om­mend. This time, though, I’m prac­ti­cal­ly shout­ing: Read this book! It’s that good.

Neil Patrick Har­ris wrote The Mag­ic Mis­fits. As pres­i­dent of the Acad­e­my of Mag­i­cal Arts from 2011 to 2014, I sus­pect­ed the “mag­ic” might be more than a word for fan­ta­sy. It’s an inte­gral part of this mys­tery, woven deft­ly into the sto­ry. What’s more, there are mag­ic tricks after many of the chap­ters, pro­vid­ing step-by-step instruc­tions and tips for mak­ing the illu­sions seem real. And Har­ris intro­duces the book by let­ting read­ers know there are codes and ciphers with­in the text. Pay attention!

Carter Locke is a young boy who loves mag­ic … and he’s taught him­self to be good with illu­sions. When he’s quite young his lov­ing par­ents dis­ap­pear, after which he goes to live with his uncle … who is a crook! Sylvester “Sly” Beat­on is self­ish and cru­el. He demands that Carter act as his shill in con­fi­dence games. Carter learns all of Uncle Sly’s moves but Carter makes a firm rule that he will nev­er steal. He has a strong com­pass for right and wrong. Life is intol­er­a­ble with Sly and Carter runs away, with­out hav­ing any idea where he’s going.

Rid­ing the rails, he ends up in Min­er­al Wells (There’s a MAP! I love maps.) where he meets Mr. Dante Ver­non, which is a very lucky hap­pen­stance. Carter is intro­duced to five oth­er young peo­ple his age, all of them prac­tic­ing some form of mag­ic. They are the Mag­ic Mis­fits, the first friends of his young life.

Min­er­al Wells is cur­rent­ly caught up in the fer­vor over B.B. Bosso’s Car­ni­val Spec­tac­u­lar. Tempt­ing peo­ple with cir­cus acts, sideshow odd­i­ties, and promis­es of prizes, Carter quick­ly real­izes the show is all based on fak­ery. When Bosso invites him to be a part of the Spec­tac­u­lar because of his mag­ic skills, Carter feels uncom­fort­able. He refus­es. Carter and the Mag­ic Mis­fits are deter­mined to save Min­er­al Wells from Bosso’s spell. There’s a strong sense of dan­ger in Har­ris’ sto­ry. He’s writ­ten a true page-turner.

I enjoyed the way the author speaks direct­ly to the read­er. From the begin­ning of Chap­ter Two:

“Sur­prise! It’s time for a flashback!

“I under­stand how frus­trat­ing it is to pause a sto­ry right in the mid­dle of the action, but there are a few things you should know about Carter before I tell you what hap­pens next. Things like: Who is this kid? And why was he run­ning? And who is the man he was run­ning from? I promise we’ll get back to Carter’s escape soon enough. And if we don’t, I’ll let you lock me up in a tight strait­jack­et with no key. Oh, the horror!”

The book reads like a movie: Lis­sy Mar­lin’s illus­tra­tions are pep­pered through­out, help­ing the read­er visu­al­ize just enough. Her char­ac­ters’ faces con­tribute depth to the story.

I hope this book wasn’t ghost-writ­ten. I want to know that Har­ris wrote the whole thing. I could hear his voice through­out the sto­ry, so I’m choos­ing to believe this is a celebri­ty-writ­ten book that far sur­pass­es oth­er star-pow­ered efforts. It’s a sol­id mid­dle-grade book. It’s charm­ing, fun­ny, com­pelling, and a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of friend­ship. And I can learn mag­ic. Mag­ic Mis­fits: The Sec­ond Sto­ry comes out in Sep­tem­ber 2018. I already have it on order.

Mag­ic Misfits
Neil Patrick Harris
Little,Brown Books for Young Readers
Novem­ber 2017
ISBN 978 – 0316391825