THE MAGICIANS’ CIRCLE

Haining follows up Wizards’ Den (2003) with 14 more tales replete with witches, wizards, and magic-working, many from the same stellar cast of contributors. The only weak link is George MacDonald’s “The Day Boy and the Night Girl,” which comes off these days as florid and overwritten. Otherwise, from such classics as Charles Dickens’s “Magic Fishbone” and H.G. Wells’s “Magic Shop,” to page-turning episodes from Philip Pullman’s Count Karlstein, Roald Dahl’s The Witches, and more from the likes of Ursula K. LeGuin, Jacqueline Wilson, and Peter S. Beagle, readers will be spellbound from start to finish. Making frequent references to Harry Potter and other high-profile fantasy, Haining opens each tale with a “hook,” and closes with enticing comments about each author’s other work. All in all, a first-rate blend of new and old, hilarious and terrifying, romantic, adventuresome, ingenious, and startling outings from many of the most renowned fantasists of the past three centuries. (Short stories. 10-15)