The author of Half Magic goes half magic again in an appealing and successfully executed family story that is also a melange of the modern and the medieval. On the whole it reminds one of C. S. Lewis' Narnia stories, though it tries a little harder to do what comes naturally to Mr. Lewis. Roger, about 12, his kid sister Ann, and their very nice, cultured parents are the family. Roger's and Ann's adventure begins when their father must go to Baltimore to spend the summer having an operation. Staying with relatives there, Roger soon begins to hear his model soldiers talking to him in the tongue of King Richard's, Ivanhoe's and Robin Hood's day. It is but a short time from then that Roger and Ann, and their cousins Jack and Eliza have fully entered into the plots of court life, and not only to venture but to grow.
