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Black and Blue Magic
Black and Blue Magic
Black and Blue Magic
Ebook175 pages2 hours

Black and Blue Magic

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From a three-time Newbery Honor author: Harry Houdini Marco had it hard enough as a normal clumsy twelve-year-old—but growing wings made it even worse.
 Except for his unusual name, Harry Houdini Marco is unremarkable in every way. While his namesake was the greatest illusionist of all time, Harry can’t even catch a ball. He is on the verge of a long, boring summer—and he is dreading every moment of it. Then he meets a mysterious traveling salesman named Mr. Mazzeeck. But Mr. Mazzeeck is more than a traveling salesman, he’s a wizard—at least, he claims to be. Before he leaves town, Mr. Mazzeeck gives Harry a bottle of magical oil, saying that the potion will give him wings. And to Harry’s amazement, the oil works: He gets wings! Now he just has to figure out how to use them. This ebook features an extended biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 4, 2012
ISBN9781453283394
Black and Blue Magic
Author

Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is the author of The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, and The Witches of Worm, all Newbery Honor Books. Her most recent books include The Treasures of Weatherby, The Bronze Pen, William S. and the Great Escape, and William’s Midsummer Dreams. She lives in Mill Valley, California. Visit her at ZKSnyder.com.

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Rating: 4.116666633333334 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Snyder delivers another magical summer adventure in this third novel - following upon Season of Ponies and The Velvet Room - which follows the story of young Harry Houdini Marco, who is given the gift of magical wings. Calling himself "Humpty Harry" because of his clumsiness, Harry lives with his mother in the boarding house she runs in San Francisco. Facing a lonely summer because all the neighborhood children have moved away, and longing for a father, Harry finds himself the recipient of a most astonishing gift when Mr. Mazzeeck, a strange man that he helps one day on the bus, comes to stay at the boarding house. Adventure follows adventure in a summer that Harry will never forget...An entertaining fantasy for intermediate readers, Black and Blue Magic explores one of the quintessential childhood fantasies: the ability to fly. Snyder manages to convincingly weave together the fantastic elements of her plot with the more "mundane" family story, and the result is quite satisfying. Although most of Snyder's early novels were illustrated by Alton Raible, Black and Blue Magic was one of the exceptions, with black and white drawings by Gene Holtan.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    With a clumsy protagonist named "Harry Houdini Marco," you know this is one of Snyder's rare forays into comic storytelling. The results are fun, if not exactly the sort of thing she's best at writing. The plot is comparable to one of the more humor-driven episodes of "The Twilight Zone" that would have been broadcast just a few years earlier: boy has flaw, boy meets supernatural being, boy gets magical gift, magical gift helps boy overcome flaw. None of it is particularly suspenseful, and nothing in the book will come as much of a surprise; it is, however, very readable. Harry himself is an easy character to like, and Mr. Mazzeeck is a great little guardian angel-style guide. The story only starts to drag once Harry is regularly utilizing his magic wings to go on nighttime jaunts; that section becomes repetitive and relies a little too much on the juxtaposition of heroic and humorous incident, which isn't really Snyder's strong suit. Otherwise, "Black and Blue Magic" is a very pleasant story for pre-teens, perhaps for readers who would find a more "serious" supernatural treatment (as is more typical of Snyder) too frightening.

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Black and Blue Magic - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

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