MAGIC: A Treasury for Young Readers

Magic is...tricks, familiars, little people, legend, humor, dragons, mermaids, in an anthology of well-known but excellent short stories, plus some poems, some spells and some special stones. From the world of illusion comes R.A. Lafferty, Seven-Day Terror and H.G. Wells, The Magic Shop. Legends include the Irish The Giant's Stairs by T. Crofton Croker, the Scottish The Smith and the Fairies by John F. Campbell, the American Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving. A bewitched cat in Walter de la Mare's Broomsticks, a bothered mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, a bewildered (but cultured) dragon in Kenneth Grahame's witty The Reluctant Dragon, plus a zany tale of a bacon, apple, and onion pie that's a lethal weapon, and a glimpse of the future classroom by Isaac Asimov round out the story quota. The spells and stones are interesting but presented on a simpler level than the stories; the poems are appropriate enough, but not as immediate as the fiction. Familiar bedevilment for browsers or borrowers.