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In this collaboration by two well-known British children’s authors, dedicated to E. Nesbit and consciously hearkening back to Five Children and It, two teens and two tweens united in a newly blended family find a magic book that can teach them to become genies in a lamp. When their parents marry and move into a new home in a boring country town, the siblings yearn for one thing: to go back to London. They jump at their chance to acquire magical abilities. Guided by a cantankerous magical bookworm they name “Skribble,” the quartet tries to advance in geniedom, but, as they’re teens and tweens, they can’t avoid squabbles and silly choices. Life lessons ensue. Danger looms when two real genies stalk them. Chapman (My Secret Unicorn) and Cole (Astrosaurs) pitch the narrative into the strike zone of their target audience, with as much emphasis on kiddie play and silliness as on magic and suspense. While it’s mostly light, silly fun that goes down easily, literarily it doesn’t hold a candle to either its inspiration or Edward Eager’s midcentury hommages thereof. (Fantasy. 8-12)
