The month's book reviews

A book about kids in the U.S.
who become wizards

After reading the Harry Potter books and seeing the movie, this reader thought it might be time to look at a book called "So You Want to be a Wizard" by Diane Duane. The book first appeared in 1983 but has been republished in paperback in 2001. It's only natural to compare it to the books by the British author, J. K. Rowling, since it came before Harry Potter and is about wizards in the United States.

The heroine in the wizard book is eleven-year-old Nita (short for Jaunita) Callahan. She lives in a New York City neighborhood. Some bigger girls in middle school have been bullying her after school. Nita has a way of being too quick with her mouth, so Joanne, the leader of the bullies, is especially hard on her. One day, after school, Nita ran from the group and hid from them in the basement of the public library. It was there that she came upon an old book titled "So You Want to be a Wizard." Nita thought it was a joke at first, but she began to read the book. She was so impressed she signed it out to take it home.

Nita's first attempt at wizardry involved talking to trees, and, amazingly, they talked back to her. While attempting to cast simple spells in the woods, she met Christopher (or Kit). She vaguely knew him from school, and she knew that older boys bullied him, just as older girls were bullying her. Kit also had found a book on wizardry. He was only a little more advanced in his wizard studies that Nita, but they teamed up to explore further what was involved in being a wizard.

At first Nita and Kit thought they could use their spells to keep the older kids from picking on them. They quickly found out, however, that wizardry involved a lot more than that. While experimenting, they ended up in an alternate universe, where New York had been taken over by bad wizards. New York taxicabs, for example, were living beings and, under the control of an evil wizard, were bent on destroying Nita and Kit. There were helicopters, which like giant preying mantises, tried to eat them up. By accident, the two kid wizards are put in a position where they had to save their city from being taken over by that evil wizard and his followers.

The wizardry in this book is a lot different from that in Harry Potter. There is much more effort to explain wizardry in "scientific" terms and these explanations used black hole terminology and radiation, for example. The first part of the book has little action and moves very slowly. The last third of the book is all action, as Nita and Kit and a strange electronic ally, called Fred, try to save New York City and return to home as they remembered it. There is an attempt at fun and humor in the book, but it doesn't work as well as it does in Harry Potter's adventures.

Another great sports biography
from Matt Christopher

Kobe Bryant is certainly unlike most of the players in the National Basketball Association. For one thing, he went to the NBA right out of high school. Sure, his father had been a fairly successful NBA player when Kobe was little. But, as he was growing up, Kobe lived in Europe. His father played basketball for a team in Italy. Kobe played his early days of basketball with kids who liked the game of soccer better than American basketball.

When he finally returned to America to go to high school in Philadelphia, he had to learn how to play pickup basketball with inner city kids in Philadelphia. Kobe had to learn a whole new English language as well, since the English he spoke in Italy didn't work in big city America.

Of course, Kobe had advantages that most kids would not have when it comes to playing basketball. He had his basketball star father to play one on one with. He played with pro basketball players when he was still in his early teens. In Europe, he learned to play disciplined ball, so he did not have the bad habits that kids pick up playing ball in the neighborhood. On top of all that, Kobe would rather play basketball than do about anything else. He played day and night and year around.

This biography is an entertaining life story to read. In addition, for the kid interested in basketball, it may give some useful insights on how to play the game better. At the end, it deals with the relationship between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, as they took the Lakers to the national championship.

A book about a real, live "wizard"

The closest things we have in real life to wizards are the great magicians, who make us believe they do magical things. Probably the best know magician of modern times is Harry Houdini, who lived from 1874 to 1926. "Harry Houdini, Master Magician," by Dana Meachen Rau is his biography written for kids.

Harry Houdini's real name was Ehrich Weiss. He was born in Budapest, Hungary. At the age of four, he was brought to the United States to live in Wisconsin with his parents, three brothers, and a half-brother. From the time he was very young, Ehrich had to work shining shoes and selling newspapers in order to help support his family.

When Ehrich was about fifteen, he read the life story of a famous French magician named Robert-Houdin. Ehrich was so impressed by Robert-Houdin that he later called himself Harry Houdini, when he began performing as a magician. By 1891, he was touring with a partner and doing magic to entertain audiences. In 1894, he met a young woman named Bess Rahner. They married and Bess became not only his wife but also replaced Houdini's partner in his act.

The Houdini's had a hard time making a living in the early years of their performing. Harry became interested in "escape" acts. He became famous as a magician who could break his way out of jails around the country, even when left in a cell while handcuffed. In 1900, Harry and Bess went to Europe, where they performed in all the major cities. On his return to the United States, he continued to perform as an "escape artist." One of his newer acts was to allow himself to be put in a straightjacket and suspended high in the air, as he tried to escape. He allowed himself to be handcuffed and chained and dropped in a cold river, and was still able to free himself and swim to shore.

The book explains some of Houdini magical tricks and illusions. It also points out that with all of his efforts to fool people into believing what he did on stage was magic, Harry Houdini worked hard to prove to people that there was really no such thing as magic. Every trick had a logical explanation. There is really no such thing as a wizard!

A close look at the Civil War in Missouri

Early one evening, thirteen-year-old Jacob Knight looked up to see about a dozen horsemen, with masks over their faces, yelling for his father to come out of their small farm home. It was October of 1861, early in the Civil War. Jacob's father was for the Union and against the South's taking up arms and breaking away form America. The masked men were neighboring farmers who wanted Missouri to break away from the Union and become one of the Confederate States. Called "bushwackers," these men were willing to burn down barns and houses, steal livestock, and, sometimes, even kill Union sympathizers.

Jacob's parents ordered him to take his eight-year-old sister, Eliza, and run and hide in the woods for safety. When Jacob finally returned home, he found the barn and farmhouse burned to the ground and his parents and the younger babies gone. For safety, Jacob decides that he and his sister should try to make it to Iowa, where relatives of his mother lived. He hoped that his parents would also have escaped to go there. He feared, though, that they were dead.

The rest of the story is about Jacob's efforts to travel and, then, eventually, survive the winter with his sister. A caring woman on a small farm in middle Missouri gives them shelter. While living and helping out on the farm, Jacob found out that there were Union sympathizers, or jayhawkers, who were doing the same kinds of things that the bushwackers had done to his family. Jacob has to decide what to do when he is sure both sides are in the wrong.

The book, "The Bushwacker," by Jennifer Johnson Garrity, not only tells what the Civil War was like in Missouri, but it gives a detailed picture of what farm life was like in the 1860's.