Half Magic

Half Magic	Harcourt Brace Javanonich
Written by Edward Eager,	1954
Fantasy	217 pages
Illustrated by N.M. Bodecker	Reading Level age 8-12

Summary

Four children are playing at the beginning of summer. Jane, the oldest, picks up a nickel shinning from the sidewalk. They are sitting on the porch, bored when she wishes something would happen, even a fire. Suddenly, fire trucks go wailing down the street. A playhouse was on fire! Amazed, the children stare at Jane and try to figure out if they were magic as well. They don’t realize that the nickel was magic until their mother took it for bus fare! Their mother was visiting her aunt and uncle for several hours, when she wished she was at home than at their house. Next thing, she was halfway home. A kind man drove her home. Jane stayed up for her, asked about the nickel back and asked if anything odd happened. Jane hides the coin in her closet. The next day Martha, the youngest, came to wake Jane to play. She sat leaning on the closet door, wishing someone would talk to her. The cat, Carrie started speaking jumbled words. Mark, the second, came in and took his skates from the bag where Jane hid the coin. He goes skating to the park, wishing his friend were here to play. Meanwhile, Martha showed Katherine, the third, the cat and they wake up Jane. She looks for the coin to explain, only to find it missing. They all run out to find Mark before he wishes anything. They find him and ask what he was thinking. “I was just wishing we were on a deserted island.” As you can imagine, they don’t end up on a deserted island, but in an Arabian desert. Jane takes the skates and pulls out the coin, and figuring out that the wishes only came half true. Then a camel herder came and seeing the coin, tries to take it from them. They wish him half a mile away, of course he is only a quarter mile away. They wish him twice as much as he deserves and wish themselves twice as far as home, appearing on their own porch. Mark takes the coin and fixes Carrie, the cat and sends his friends twice as far as they were before his wish. They decide to take turns with the wishes, Katherine arguing she should go first, since everyone else had a turn. She wishes to go twice as far as King Arthur’s time, to see two tournaments, go on two quests and do two good deeds. They meet Sir Lancelot and save him from a trap. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very grateful to be saved by children. At the tournament, Katherine wishes herself to beat Lancelot twice. This upsets the crowd and Lancelot is shamed and leaves for a quest to regain his honor. Merlin confronts them and fixes all that they did with good intensions. He cautions them there isn’t enough to keep wishing through the centuries and sends them home. The children agree to spend a regular summer day in going to the movies. Martha, too young to read and the others too absorbed to read the subtitles, lies down under Jane’s seat, using her purse as a pillow. She sleepily wishes she wasn’t here. So she becomes half of herself. Jane looks for her and finds half Martha. Martha scared, takes off running. She creates quite a commotion, everyone yelling about ghosts, aliens and invasions. Martha keeps running and hides in a book store. The owner is Mr. Smith, who happened to be the kind man who drove their mother home. The others catch up to Martha, to find her telling Mr. Smith all about their adventures. They fix all the upheaval outside and wish their mother there to assure her they were alright. She is flustered and can’t remember how she got there. They explain they called her and they all go home for dinner. Mark, Katherine, and Martha are intrigued with Mr. Smith and suggest they ask him for advice about the magic coin. Jane, who remembers their father and doesn’t want a stepfather, disagrees and spitefully wishes that she belonged to another family, only twice as much. She still looks like Jane, but doesn’t act like her one bit. She flounces out the door and down the street. They follow her then run back for Mr. Smith to help them rescue Jane. Mr. Smith pretends to be a child psychologist and asks Jane questions about the coin. Not-Jane’s mother does not believe him and starts to throw him out. Mr. Smith grabs for the coin and wishes Jane was twice the Jane she used to be, curing her of the other family. He wishes them twice as far as home, and they arrive in the living room, just as their mother walks through the door. She thinks she is going crazy and is quiet the next morning as she left for work. The children visit Mr. Smith for advice and find that he proposed but Mother said no. They go visit her at work to try and make her believe by giving her a raise, having a bird come talk to them, then turning her into a circus horse rider and finally just wishing her to believe them. The last one just made her agree with them on everything. Mr. Smith takes the charm and wishes her back to herself and starts over, wishing her to be twice as open to the idea of the magic coin. She welcomes them to her office and he explains the secret of the magic coin. She tells them her wishes without taking the coin. She wishes to marry Mr. Smith and stay home with the children and go on vacations to the country. The children wish for her hopes to come true twice. There was a music and light that shone after that wish, they guessed the magic as all used for that great wish. That night, Jane put the coin under her pillow, and wished in her heart that her father was there with her and was happy about Mr. Smith. The coin granted her wish and she dreamt of her father and how happy he was for Mother. The next day, the children decided the coin was so old that it couldn’t have been used up by the four of them and that it would work for someone else. They leave it in front of a girl holding a toddler’s hand. The child saw it and swallowed it. Just as they were going to say something, the girl picked up the baby and wished he wasn’t as heavy. The baby immediately slipped out of her hands and bounced on the ground, the coin popping out of his mouth. The girl picked it up and got a thinking look on her face. The four children got on the bus happy and headed home.

Reaction

I thought that it was a good twist to the typical magic wishes story. It was fun to try and figure how it would work out and think of better ways of wording their misinterpreted wishes. I liked the characters and the personalities that I could relate to. There were small references to math dealing with the fractions for the wishes.

Potential Problems

There was a scene where they fight off three knights that captured Sir Lancelot. The three knights kill each other and the children wish them back so Lancelot could fight his way out.

Recommendations

I would recommend this book to those who believe in magic, and enjoy reading about adventures in other centuries.