Customer Reviews

So You Want To Be A Wizard (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Young Wizards)

5 star:		(131)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

"So You Want To Be A Wizard" is the beginning of an exciting and tantalizing series where wizardry and life in the city are a little too close for comfort. Nita, an intelligent but physically unendowed 13-year-old, finds refuge in the kid's section of the library after a particularly bad beating by a group of school bullies - and finds a book that not only tells her that there *is* magic but how to get it, why to get it, and how to use it.

Kit, a 12-year-old Hispanic boy with school troubles similar to hers, teams up with her in a wizardly Ordeal to gain their powers. Shifted "sideways" into an alternate Manhattan, they discover both their wizardly talents and find friends in each other.

I originally read first High Wizardry (the last books in the series), then Deep Wizardry (the second book) and then this, before going on to A Wizard Abroad. I also enjoyed her Feline Wizards series, of which only two books are in print so far. However, other YA readers may not: they are on an adult reading level and you need to appreciate this.

I also recommend other books (most of these are fantasy) by Patricia Wrede (her Dragons series, "Dealing with Dragons", "Talking with Dragons", etc), the Unicorn series by Tamora Pierce ("Black Unicorn", "Red Unicorn"), the "Hero and the Crown" and "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley.

All of these books, including (especially!) So You Want To Be A Wizard have strong female protagonists. I am, after all, a 13-year-old girl and really dislike the knight-in-shining-armour- rescues-the-damsel-in-distress stuff.

I believe you will really enjoy So You Want to Be A Wizard. Either buy it here or ask for it at a library. Interlibrary Loan works really well!

Enjoy!

Diane Duane, a great science-fiction writer and author of many Star Trek books, writes an original and special tale of magic and wizardry, which seems less like magic than like magical science. Because of the eerie scenery, this may not appeal to some Harry Potter-type readers.

Nita is a very ordinary kid who is constantly kicked around by the snobby local bullies. To escape them, she heads for the library, and finds a book called "So You Want To Be a Wizard." Thinking it's a joke, Nita checks out the book and goes home to read it. Within days, she's and her new friend Kit are both wizards, and off on a genuinely frightening adventure, to where trees tell stories and cars rove like packs of wolves.

Perhaps the best character is a tiny white hole nicknamed Fred. The funniest scene in the book is when he gets the hiccups...

Manhatten never seemed to be appealing until I read this book, where it hides an alternate world that cannot be described in one of these reviews. Also hidden away is a demonic villain whose evil is not evident when you first see him. Fred's description of him--"starsnuffer"--sounds a bit silly, but it's accurate.

Perhaps the best aspect of this book is that the wizards in it are not simply wizards because they can and because they want to be. The wizards have an integral part in keeping the universe ticking, responsibilities, and pressure to keep doing so. They don't do it for power--they do it because they are good people. This different view is an integral part of the book, that makes it stand apart from much of the kid's fantasy out there.

This book cannot be fully absorbed in one sitting--take the time to savor it, and be sure to reread it. It's that good!

First of all, I find it interesting that another Tulsan wrote about this book, and that I decided to review it so soon after. In my experience, Tulsa is not fertile ground for fantasy-lovers. It was a nice surprise.

But anyway...The book. This book heads up a wonderful series that I would recommend to anyone who even remotely likes magic or science. The characters provide deligthful and strong role models for young people. I know I admired them when I first read it at age twelve (I'm now nineteen). I also find Fred to be one of the most endearing characters in all fantasy. (He possesses the same attractive humor as Sunspark in THE DOOR INTO FIRE, which I would strongely suggest to any Duane fan. It's--sadly--out of print, so check your local used bookstore). Another strength of this book is it's sense of place--it is the first book I ever read that really made me want to visit New York.

The only warning I would give would be for younger readers. I found the very beginning a little heavy, what with all the science-talk. Just keep going--it's well worth the trouble. Also, make sure to read the next two books. They're wonderful as well. In fact, I'm probably going to write glowing reviews for them as well.

I have read almost every fantasy and sci-fi book that I can find and this was one of the best. It's about a girl named Nita (Juanita) who's having a hard time at school and takes refuge in the library to avoid getting clobbered. There she finds a book titled 'so you want to be a wizard' that tells her about her potential to be a one. She thinks it's all a joke but she reads it anyway. Nita, a hispanic boy named Kit, and a white hole named Fred that they picked up try to open a world gate to get Nita's pen back and have their plans go horribly wrong. Flung into a different dimension for fiddling with the world gate they have to battle the Lone Power and his oddly deranged machines to escape. I'm in 7th grade and I have lent this book to all my friends and even the ones who don't like to read love it. If you like fantasy and/or science fiction then this is definetly the book to read.

When I first picked up this book I was desprate for any book that had to do with magic (thats about the only kind I read). It was kind of hard to read at first but it got good after awhile. All though the first book was more for a younger age level (I'm fifteen) the rest of the series wasn't. It was great. I recomened these books. If you like fantasy books I suggest you try readin books by Tamora Peirce, Anne McCaffey, Robin Mckinnley,Mercedes Lacky, Patricia C. Wrede, Sherewood Smith,and Phillip Pullman.

When I first read this book, I couldn't quite catch onto it. Since the wizardry in the book took a scientific approach, with formualas and the like, I had a hard time latching onto the storyline. Once the characters got rolling and begin working as wizards and begin their Ordeal, the action picked up and I got me interested. I would not recommend this book for anyone younger than, say, eleven. Not because of subject matter, but because I don't think the attention span would last long enough to survive the slow-paced beginning. If you do really like this book, there are three sequals in which the action is constant and you don't have to drudge your way through explanations.

Thirteen-year-old Nita's discovery of the book "So You Want to Be a Wizard" in her local library speaks to every avid reader's desire to find something magical in a book. Nita, of course, with her newfound friend Kit (Christopher), also a novice wizard, goes much further than just finding the book: she's able to do the spells in it, too. The pair is soon involved in a classic test that involves outwitting the prince of evil himself.

I read the 350+ pages of this book in a single sitting, and I know I didn't take it all in. It's satisfying at the Harry Potter level, with spells and whatnot, and also at the C. S. Lewis or Charles Williams level, where eschatological catastrophe looms. I'm waiting with great impatience for my eight-year-old to finish the book so that I can reread it. The plot is probably too complex for an eight-year-old, but the details keep his head firmly in the book. The author's inclusion of both a boy and a girl as protagonists helps the book to escape gender stereotyping, and the fact that they have separate strengths and must work together is good for role modeling.

The thing that I most enjoyed about this great book was the approach it took to magic. It didn't have people muttering odd words and have things suddenly start happening. All of the magic was totally "scientific". It approached magic as a science, not an unexplained phenomenon. The first book (So You Want to be a Wizard) was definetly the best, but also the most frighteningly scary. It was utterly freaky when Nita and Kit were in the alternate Manhattan.

This book gives a whole new approach to magic, the author treating it as a sience, not an unexplained mysterious force, as in other seemingly similar books. It grabs you on the first page and NEVER LETS GO! I was drawn immediately into the "other" Manhattan that the main characters, Nita and Kit, discover. Although the third book in this series is my personal favorite, it is essential to read SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD first; otherwise you would get lost in the sometimes confusing plot and story. I urge any sience-fiction lover (or anyone who wasn't scared off by the cover illustration) to read this. You'll be glad you did.

New York City, especially Manhattan island, is a popular place for paranormal activity in fiction. There are often times gates to other universes (think of the two in the Ghost Busters movies) and in So You Want to Be a Wizard, there is a gate to a very strange alternate New York. Two novice wizards, Kit and Nita, travel to this alternate New York while innocently trying to recover Nita's lost pen. Can they get home and save the world at the same time?

While the book is a fairy typical young teen discovers magic is real type of story, I quickly found myself sucked into it. I liked how easily the wizardry fit into the modern world without a separation of societies into muggles and wizards as in the Harry Potter books. Wizardry in Duane's books can be a serious occupation or a hobby or somewhere in between.

My one complaint with the book (though this is more a complaint with book two) is the amount of time Duane spends on describing the Speech, a universal language that all wizards and all things in the universe can speak except apparently human adults who have forgotten how to speak it. I like the concept of a universal form of communication but Duane's endless descriptions of how it works and how wonderful it is often time stalls the plot.

Fortunately there is enough humor and horror to keep the plot moving. On the humor side, there is Fred, an eager white hole who is excellent at making diversions for Kit and Nita. On the horror side there are the living vehicles (cars, trains, helicopters, and elevators) who are bent on killing each other and eating anything that gets in their way; I will never look at hydrants the same way again!