MAGNOLIA IN ILIUM

A girl and her friends band together to save their magical world from destruction in this fantasy for middle schoolers.

In the realm of Faraway, Magnolia is a 12-year-old girl with a prodigious gift for magic and a penchant for hoop skirts and crinolines. She is dismayed when her magician parents decide to send her to Gryndells, a boarding school in the great city of Ilium, to hone her powers. She hates leaving her parents’ steam-powered showboat, which transports magicians up and down the Mississippi, and her social circle of sprites, centaurs, talking trees, and catfish the size of city buses. After her arrival at Gryndells, five students disappear, and Magnolia discovers—with the help of one of the school’s ghosts—that something is very wrong in Faraway. Joined by three fellow students and Joe, her anxious parrot familiar, the determined Magnolia sets out to find the missing kids. Plotted with unforced humor and a dash of horror, Jenkinson’s richly textured fantasy involves astral projection, transport portals, evil Imps, giant ogres, a mystical forest with a mind of its own, and stolen dragon teeth with the potential to destroy the entire world of Faraway. There are a few misused words, such as “simpered” for whimpered and “shuttered” for shuddered, but the book’s pleasures, in addition to the well-realized characters, are many. They include references to fairy tales and fantasy literature woven throughout the narrative. In addition to Harry Potter tributes (confusing staircases, sentient books, eccentric professors), there are a mini–Mad Hatter, size-altering potions, quarreling twins (faces on a spinning coin), mentions of hobbits, a powerful magic ring, ceramic Oz figurines, guards in emerald green uniforms, and a witch’s feline familiar named Paiwacket, inspired by Pyewacket in the play/film Bell, Book and Candle. But at its heart, this first installment of a series is a buddy story (and the pals include Joe and Paiwacket), as Magnolia and her companions bond, working together to try to prevent the Imps’ horrific plans for Faraway.

A witty, well-conceived, entertaining fantasy featuring a memorable young heroine and genuine chills.