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So You Want to Be a Wizard

(Young Wizards #1)

Diane Duane (Goodreads Author)

3.82 · Rating details · 24,743 ratings · 1,096 reviews

Nita Callahan is at the end of her rope because of the bullies who've been hounding her at school... until she discovers a mysterious library book that promises her the chance to become a wizard. But she has no idea of the difference that taking the Wizard's Oath is going to make in her life. Shortly, in company with fellow beginner-wizard Kit Rodriguez, Nita's catapulted ...more

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Hardcover, 323 pages

Published July 1st 2003 by HMH Books for Young Readers (first published 1983)

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3.82 ·

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· 24,743 ratings · 1,096 reviews

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Jun 05, 2017 mark monday rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: secret-histories, inbetweenworld

So you want to stop being bullied, you just want some time to yourself, to read, to do what you want to do, to even make a friend maybe? You find a book and it tells you how. Your book will take you places. Dealing with bullies after reading this book becomes such a small thing. Being the person you want to be and doing the things you want to do is so much more important!

So you want to learn how to do wizardly things, talk to trees and suchlike, make things happen, meet new beings, maybe find th So you want to stop being bullied, you just want some time to yourself, to read, to do what you want to do, to even make a friend maybe? You find a book and it tells you how. Your book will take you places. Dealing with bullies after reading this book becomes such a small thing. Being the person you want to be and doing the things you want to do is so much more important!

So you want to learn how to do wizardly things, talk to trees and suchlike, make things happen, meet new beings, maybe find that lost pen? Your book will show you how. It will turn magic into science and you will summon not a demon but a star; your new friend will have his own familiar too, not a beast but a car. A star and a car. They will take you far!

So you want to discover new worlds? How about Hell? Or a twisted version of our world full of horror and hopelessness which may as well be hell. It may not be the adventure you wanted but it is an adventure nonetheless. You and your friend will have to figure things out, and very quickly - it's a good thing you both are smart. You will learn important lessons on this adventure, like sometimes people you love will die. And that's a hard lesson to learn!

So you saw this on kindle unlimited for the remarkable price of free and you thought, hey that's on my list, why not? You also thought that this would be pretty okay, you haven't heard much about it but then there's this surprisingly real slice of life and this surprising bit of diversity (in the 80s!) and then that other bit of diversity (a gay couple? maybe? in an 80s book for kids!) and the surprisingly science-y way of using magic and the surprisingly bleak and hallucinogenic adventure that comes from searching for a lost pen (of all things!) and the surprising lack of adults or aslans to the rescue (but lots of trees and statues!) and then, surprise surprise, you've realized you just started a whole new series that promises a whole lot of pleasure!

So you want to read a kid's book that starts off like any good kid's book but slowly becomes something more resonant than you expected, darker and more tragic and yet still light and life-affirming? I suggest you read this book! ...more

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Dec 12, 2017 carol. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of A Wrinkle in Time

Recommended to carol. by: Allie

Shelves: classic, young-adult, multi-culti, urban-fantasy-ya

Why yes, yes I do.

Based on the title, I expected something rather light and possibly silly. What I got was something more substantial, an old middle-grade book/YA book that suddenly had me recalling A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Somehow I missed this one when I was younger, which is too bad. An enthusiastic review from a friend (thanks, Allie!) alerted me to this deficiency and I decided to rectify it.

"She strolled between shelves, looking at titles, smiling as she met old frie Why yes, yes I do.

Based on the title, I expected something rather light and possibly silly. What I got was something more substantial, an old middle-grade book/YA book that suddenly had me recalling A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Somehow I missed this one when I was younger, which is too bad. An enthusiastic review from a friend (thanks, Allie!) alerted me to this deficiency and I decided to rectify it.

"She strolled between shelves, looking at titles, smiling as she met old friends--books she had read three times or five times or a dozen. Just a title, or an author's name, would be enough to summon up happy images. Strange creatures like phoenixes and psammeads, moving under smoking London daylight of a hundred years before... starships and new worlds and the limitless vistas of interstellar night..."

Nita, short for Juanita, is regularly bullied and abused by neighborhood kids, finding herself almost helpless to prevent it. As she is running away, she darts into the library for safety and finds herself walking through the children's section, greeting books like old friends. One jumps out at her: So You Want to Be a Wizard? and she finds herself intrigued by what she reads. Perhaps it can help keep her safe from bullying? The wizard's book is divided into sections, and the read book follows those guidelines. 'Prologue,' 'Preliminary Exercises,' Research and Development,' etc. In short order, she meets another bullied kid, Kat, and starts working with him to retrieve a pen stolen from Nita in her latest attack. Events quickly escalate.

There's a lot to like here; a male and female lead that aren't involved in a romantic relationship, Kat's Latino heritage, parents that are supportive but mildly inept, astrophysics, mild fart humor, and kids saving the world. I thought the meta-themes of responsibility, compassion and choices well done. Added bonus for talking to trees and a (view spoiler). I loved the affection for libraries and books so evident in the first chapter. I thought the dialogue had an organic feel.

What isn't to like is that Duane seems to still have some period sexism going on, generally possibly explained by the fact that Kat discovers his book sooner, except that it still felt... off. There's also a lot of extraneous writing where a paragraph literally takes up a page and a half, particularly at the end battle. Plot development is a bit disjointed; I think even as a youth, it would have seemed odd to me to draw my sand in the line over an astronaut pen, but maybe not. The skill level of the two young wizards grows exponentially; they literally prepare for the big adventure by reading thirty chapters in one night. Because a lot of times Nita and Kat use Wizard Speech, the dialogue markers are in parenthesis, which may be confusing to less sophisticated readers.

On the balance, however, good completely outweighs the bad. I bet I would have loved it when I was younger, and I can absolutely see giving the sequel a try.

Three and a half stars, rounding up at the request of Young carol.

See also mark monday's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more

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Nov 01, 2008 Tamora Pierce rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: tween lovers of contemporary fantasy

Recommended to Tamora by: saw it on the shelf

The perfect fantasy novel--there you are in the library, and you pick up one particular book . . . I love Kit and Nita as they struggle with being sloppy and working around their parents as young wizards!

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Jan 21, 2008 Kewpie rated it it was amazing

This is sort of an American, dark and urban version of Harry Potter. While browsing shelves at the library, Nita discovers a book with the title "So You Want to Be a Wizard" She takes it as a joke, but it turns out to be the real deal. The spells work and she actually is learning to be a wizard.

It turns out that this is the way wizards are trained. Their textbooks seek out those with the talent. Nita soon finds another wizard named Kit and they go on a really twisted and somewhat scary adventure ...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Daniella rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: young-adult, contemporary-fantasy, 2009, rereadable, to-buy, series, book-challenge-2009, favorites

"Dear Artificer, I’ve blown my quanta and gone to the Good Place!"

I'm so glad that I decided to re-read So You Want to Be a Wizard as part of my self-imposed book challenge for this year. I'd almost forgotten how much I love this book!

In fact, I love it so much that I almost couldn't read it again. At first, I would read a couple of pages and have to put the book down because I'd get all teary and junk. Not because it's sad (although it does have its moments), but because I would remember how mu ...more

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Jul 18, 2007 Bonnie rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-sf, library-books, reviewed

The magic and wizardry content in this book was just too strange. It's totally possible to write about things that are different from what we experience in this world, but to write them in a way that you understand what's going on. In this book, though she uses analogies that don't help make things any clearer. When I stopped reading, for example, the 2 young wizards are creating a thing to plug a hole in a thing to keep out a grey cloud that they somehow know wants to eat them (clearly I couldn ...more

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Jul 07, 2014 Sesana rated it really liked it

Shelves: middle-grade, fantasy

Reading this book, I wished I could time travel. I would hand this book to my younger self, when I was Nita's age. Because much as I liked this book as an adult, I know that if I'd first read this in middle school, I would have loved it.

It is a good book, a very good book. I take nothing away from Duane, because I think she hit every mark nearly perfectly. And I did enjoy reading it, even if I'm not hooked. Her system of magic is interesting, basically talking the world into doing what you want ...more

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Apr 06, 2007 Mrelia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When the young readers in my acquaintance complain that there aren't more Harry Potter books to read, I like to suggest this series.
I usually start the campaign with a few questions to get them interested.
"What if kid wizards couldn't tell their families about their powers?"
"What if they had to risk their lives in secret to keep the world safe?"

I find the pre-teen and teen characters in this series to be much more engaging and realistic than the self-centered, clueless and common sense-lacking c ...more

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Nov 21, 2009 Adam rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: People from the 1950's, Trash Fantasy lovers, young kids with nothing else to read,

Recommended to Adam by: Mrs. (Sandra?) Laviolette, Alex Katigbak

Shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction

I started reading this book for the first time when I was grade 8 and I couldn't really get into it. I've finally figured out why.

I'm reading it again because it was in my house and I needed something to read, and the dialogue feels forced and VERY dated. It's almost a condescending mockery of how kids talk. The ideas in it are really interesting, but they're described by thirteen year-olds who talk like little kids, instead of adults, so the magic is being sucked out of... well... the magic.

An ...more

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Apr 24, 2016 Linda ~ chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny ~ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, multiracial-cultural, sci-fi, ya, magic, fantasy, grade-school, contemporary, bullies, part-of-a-series

GODDAMMIT DIANE DUANE STOP PUNCHING ME IN THE HEART!

It's a children's book, they said.
It's like Harry Potter but in America, they said.
You'll have a good time, they said.

THEY ALL LIED! I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING!

There was a time when this book was about a girl, Nita, getting bullied at school and having her pen stolen - and this was the happy fun times. This book becomes so much more when she hides in a library and finds a book about wizardry. A book that materialized there just for her to di GODDAMMIT DIANE DUANE STOP PUNCHING ME IN THE HEART!

It's a children's book, they said.
It's like Harry Potter but in America, they said.
You'll have a good time, they said.

THEY ALL LIED! I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING!

There was a time when this book was about a girl, Nita, getting bullied at school and having her pen stolen - and this was the happy fun times. This book becomes so much more when she hides in a library and finds a book about wizardry. A book that materialized there just for her to discover. She soon finds another young wizard, Kit, who is also being bullied because of his accent and his brown skin. They befriend each other and start learning magic together, and then horrible and wonderful things start to happen.

First, this is NOT Harry Potter. I don't know if JK Rowlings read this series before writing her own, but there are some elements that are similar in both. Aside from the obvious (magic) there is a one-who-must-not-be-named, dragons, time travel, and two protagonists who just don't fit in and they're in school together. But that's where the similarities end. The magic here is rooted in the principles of science, the wizards are charged with slowing the destruction of the universe (all of them), and Nita and Kit have to deal with all this while going to school, dealing with bullies and hiding this from their families. Oh, and there's a white hole named Fred, and that's the least absurd thing that happens in this book. There are Advisories, older wizards who are past their "freelancing" years and now advise younger wizards while going about ordinary lives. Potential wizards can choose for themselves if they want to take on the mantle of wizard - and they can put it aside again if they no longer feel up to the task.

Duane borrows from fantasy, horror, science fiction and mythology to create her world. There are a couple of hiccups along the way, but for the most part the world-building is amazing here, and the prose is breathtaking. Nita and Kit (and Fred) are fully developed characters and get to go on their own personal journeys. They're friends and equals, despite being a year apart (Nita's older), different genders and different races. None of that stuff matters to them. What matters is that they have each other's backs, they encourage each other, and they both have strengths they can utilize as they fight the Destroyer - who eats stars out of spite. I was fully immersed as the action started to pick up, and then I didn't want to put it down, even when Duane punched a whole in my chest, tore out my heart and proceeded to squeeze it before my eyes.

This is such a cool and amazing world Duane has created here in just one book. I don't know how I missed this series growing up, but I'm glad I'm reading it now. There is a lot of nuance here I'm sure I would've missed as a kid, and it would be hard to fully appreciate this world without picking up on that stuff. Also, the nightmare fuel. So much nightmare fuel. God, what are the other nine going to bring? I am not ready. ...more

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May 31, 2016 Bill Khaemba rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, highly-rated-books, fav-2016, fantasy-epic-magic-adventure

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”

This was honestly one of the best middle-grade fantasy books, I have ever read :) It was whimsical, magical and so fun :)
MORE OF THE REVIEW HERE

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Mar 06, 2015 Emily rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy, ya-ideal-library, ya-fiction

I read this series countless times when I was a teenager, but this was always my least favorite of the lot - almost too creepy for me. I was never excited to roam around in this particular world the way I was excited to return to High Wizardry or A Wizard Abroad (though that last one may have something to do with the love interest .... sue me).

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Feb 20, 2010 Lolly's Library rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: part-of-a-series, juvenile-fantasy, borrowed-from-library

I must've been too busy reading Diana Wynne Jones and Madeleine L'Engle, because I'd never heard of this series growing up. It was only in the past couple of years that it came to my attention. I have to say, I'm not all that impressed. Part of the problem is the fact that the book feels dated. Usually when that happens, the story is able to carry me along so that I don't notice things like Dictaphones and typewriters (non-self-correcting ones, at that). Not with this book. I blame most of that I must've been too busy reading Diana Wynne Jones and Madeleine L'Engle, because I'd never heard of this series growing up. It was only in the past couple of years that it came to my attention. I have to say, I'm not all that impressed. Part of the problem is the fact that the book feels dated. Usually when that happens, the story is able to carry me along so that I don't notice things like Dictaphones and typewriters (non-self-correcting ones, at that). Not with this book. I blame most of that on the "magic" used in the story; it seemed more like physics or calculus to me. I'm sorry, but when I want to read about physics, I'll read Stephen Hawking. I don't want to stumble through it in a childrens' book. It's not the fact that magic is equated with science that gave me pause, it's the manner in which the author narrated its use. The analogies and descriptions she gave of its workings had me scratching my head, rereading paragraph after paragraph, and always with the same result: "Huh? What the hell is she talking about?" The only way I got through it was to gloss over such descriptions: "Okay, they did something and now they're in a parallel world... Oh, look, cars that act like animals!" I'll also repeat what several have said before concerning the sexist attitude represented in the story; Nita seemed to require an awful lot of aid from her fellow (male, of course) wizard, Kit. She spent most of her time deferring to him, aiding his spells, looking to him for answers. Puh-lease. Not to mention the dumb-ass concept of younger wizards having more power (what?). What a lame plot device to explain the two kids' prowess with their wizardly powers.

There are a few other nitpicky points of dislike which I won't go into detail here. The only bit that really was intriguing and quite original was the character of Fred, the white hole thingy (yes, that's a techinical term). His was the most well-rounded and charismatic character in the book, with the Lotus not far behind in terms of likeability. It's pretty sad when one feels a stronger connection to non-human characters than to the human ones about which the story (supposedly) revolves.

I will be fair and give the next book a go. Perhaps the series gets better as the characters develop. If I'm wrong, however, I'll happily forgo the rest of the series and return to the books of Diana Wynne Jones and Madeleine L'Engle, forgetting I ever heard of Diane Duane. 2.5 stars. ...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Nikki rated it did not like it

Shelves: fantasy, children-s-and-ya

I’ve been told to try these so often that I more or less assumed the recommendation would be apt, and got a bundle of the whole series in one of Diane Duane’s website sales. Unfortunately, something about this doesn’t work for me — I guess it feels too random and immature? Stuff like ‘Fred’, the ‘white hole’, who is the opposite of a black hole, and some of the logic of how magic worked just… I didn’t feel hooked by it. Once I got to the white hole burping up whole cars, I was more or less done; ...more

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Jan 10, 2014 Rachel (Kalanadi) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, favorites

My third reread: loved it.

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Apr 06, 2018 Anita Reads rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2018, to-read-own

This was such a fun read. There are things here and there I think could be a little better, but overall this was just such an interesting book with an interesting type of magic. Very highly recommended if you enjoy these sort of young people discovering they are wizards.

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Jul 20, 2012 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Christina (A Reader of Fictions) by: Alexa Wang

Shelves: series-graveyard

Conveniently, the very first book chosen for me in my new regular posting series, Sadie Hawkins' Sunday, just happened to be a book I already had in my personal collection. This series first came onto my radar when I was looking for readalikes for Harry Potter. I did enjoy this one (thanks Alexa!) and I'm glad I got a chance to dig into my massive collection of unread books.

The first thing that you should probably know is that this book was first published in 1983, long before Harry Potter. The Conveniently, the very first book chosen for me in my new regular posting series, Sadie Hawkins' Sunday, just happened to be a book I already had in my personal collection. This series first came onto my radar when I was looking for readalikes for Harry Potter. I did enjoy this one (thanks Alexa!) and I'm glad I got a chance to dig into my massive collection of unread books.

The first thing that you should probably know is that this book was first published in 1983, long before Harry Potter. The book definitely does have quite a few similarities, and, those looking for Potter readalikes, might love this, but Duane was not one of the authors trying to ride Rowlings' success. I wonder if Rowling had read these, since certain things, like the villain being referred to as You-Know-Who were incredibly similar.

For all of that, though, So You Want to Be a Wizard reminds me much more heavily of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. There is a lot of complicated vocabulary and scientific terminology within the pages of this book that would probably be targeted to a middle grade audience today. I mean, do you know what a 'temporospatial claudication' is? I sure don't. The science-y weirdness and good versus evil messages conveyed in this novel had me thinking constantly of L'Engle's classic work. In fact, I think that if you love A Wrinkle in Time, you really ought to check this series out. I loved A Wrinkle in Time when I was younger, but was not charmed by it particularly when I reread it. Science just really is not my thing, so I cannot appreciate a lot of what happens in either.

My favorite aspects of the book center around the power of the written word and love of books. There are a bunch of amazing quotes to that effect (check my favorite quote for one example). Plus, the whole concept is great. Every library has tons of those "So You Want to Be..." books, and I love how Duane built fantasy knowledge into such a seemingly simple thing.

Unfortunately, this clever device also serves as a method for info-dumping the ways of wizardry on the reader. Nita takes the library book home and devours it, attention rapt, but I did not find her reading the book nearly so enticing. This goes on for chapters. Duane tries to draw the reader in by including Nita's reactions to her reading, but these sections still dragged for me. I also feel like both Nita and Kit pick up their magical knowledge too quickly and easily. They read through their books once and can do a number of powerful spells after just a bit of practice. Plus, the spells are supposed to leave them tired, but they spend literally the last half of the book running around and doing spell after spell, even though one wiped them out the afternoon before.

As a reader, I just really struggle with books that don't place a focus on characterization. I would have loved to know more about Nita and Kit, and their daily lives. They're both clearly smart kids, and have both suffered from bullying. Rather than watching them go on a mission to retrieve Nita's stolen pen, which is really the quest of the book though it does snowball, I would have liked to see them have more personal growth, rather than just magical.

I'm really glad to have read this, because I can see how influential it has been on young adult literature, and I admire Duane for her creativity and her diverse characters. However, I do not plan to continue with the series, since I do not think I'm the ideal audience for these books. If you love A Wrinkle in Time, though, seriously, I think you will love this. ...more

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Apr 29, 2011 Amy Eye rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Everyone one has seen the books like "So you wanna be a (fill in the blank)". Nita gets lucky enough to find one that is to help her along her way to become a wizard! This is the dream of half the children in America. Nita decides she wants to use this book to help her fend off the bullies who constantly beat her up and leave her nursing her wounds and her pride on a daily basis.

One day as she is learning about her new found magical abilities, she runs into Kit, also a new wizard. They put thei Everyone one has seen the books like "So you wanna be a (fill in the blank)". Nita gets lucky enough to find one that is to help her along her way to become a wizard! This is the dream of half the children in America. Nita decides she wants to use this book to help her fend off the bullies who constantly beat her up and leave her nursing her wounds and her pride on a daily basis.

One day as she is learning about her new found magical abilities, she runs into Kit, also a new wizard. They put their heads together and in their first meeting perform a spell together that will benefit them both, or so they had hoped. In this first excursion, they pick up Fred, an adorable new friend who was once a black hole. While picking up Fred, they discover a hideous world they are anxious to escape from, the feelings of terror and vileness are palpable.

Back in their own reality, they children embark on a journey that not only leads them to powers they never dreamed of, it leads them straight back to the horrible reality they so recently escaped. The children struggle to free themselves from a land where fire hydrants eat pigeons, and helicopters try to eat humans.

I was enthralled with the book at the onset. The synopsis of the book had me ready for a marvelous fantastic adventure. What this turned out to be was more of sci-fi book with the terms magic thrown around in it in order to get in on the latest wizard bandwagon. I have heard before of magic having a place in the scientific realm - the whole shebang. But when they are transported to a land where everything is mechanical, and everything with a gear in it is evil, I feel like I am in a PG rated Terminator movie. I appreciate the original idea of it, but it simply wasn't to my taste. Someone had suggested this to me after I mentioned I wanted something to help me get over my Harry Potter fixation. If you are looking for a fantastic world of that nature, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a fantastic world that will lead you more on the Battle Star Galactica course this is what you are looking for.

When I look for magic, I'm not ready or wanting to read about mechanical things, it throws off my groove. I'm not saying this was a poorly written book, it is written very well, and anyone who is interested in more "technical" magic will fall in love with this book. But for my entertainment buck, I'll pass on the sequel. ...more

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Apr 12, 2016 Cait S rated it it was ok

Shelves: dnf

I wanted to like this. I really did. The beginning was super promising, a totally unique form of magic and how the wizard came across it. I was here for Nita, totally dug the fact that it was a male/female best friendship and they were both PoC. I was here for pretty much everything about this book.

Except for the fact that it is so...incredibly...boring. I quit at about 60% in when my brain was just screaming "ENOOUGH! ENOUGH ALREADY!" every time I thought about picking it up. Scenes were draggi ...more

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Mar 28, 2018 Laura rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2018, for-the-little-ones

1.5 🌟
A dark and urban kind of Harry Potter that's pretty much no fun at all.

The magic is interesting but the language used ranges from the vocabulary of a 6 year old to that of a grown up which makes me really wonder who this book was actually written for.

Because of the vocabulary and writing style that seem to contradict each other, the magic of the magic sort of puffs away and a story that could have been great becomes a parody. :(

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Nov 12, 2017 Allie rated it really liked it

Shelves: beloved-childrens-books, ya-fantasy

Long before Harry Potter, there was Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, about two lonely tweens who become wizards and best friends in a quest to save the world(s). I devoured these books in middle school, although I didn’t fully understand all of the scientific concepts that the author weaves into the story...including entropy, black holes, string theory, and the lifespan of stars. I just remember being fascinated by the exciting adventures of Kit and Nita. Re-reading this book as an adult, I’m Long before Harry Potter, there was Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, about two lonely tweens who become wizards and best friends in a quest to save the world(s). I devoured these books in middle school, although I didn’t fully understand all of the scientific concepts that the author weaves into the story...including entropy, black holes, string theory, and the lifespan of stars. I just remember being fascinated by the exciting adventures of Kit and Nita. Re-reading this book as an adult, I’m even more impressed by how intelligent and interesting the story is for readers of all ages.

When the book starts, Nina is hiding from school bullies in the children’s section of the library. Tucked into the “career” books about becoming a doctor or firefighter, she discovers a guide to becoming a wizard. But like the knights of old, she has to first take an oath and complete an “Ordeal” that proves her valor. The work of wizards is to fight entropy throughout the universe, which is embodied in the figure of the Lone One. Drawing on myths of Lucifer, the Lone One is a fallen version of a bright star who turned his back on the Powers That Be and introduced death into the world. After taking her oath, Nita and another young wizard, a boy named Kit, face the Lone One in a corrupted alternate version of Manhattan. Accompanied by a friendly star (which has left most of its mass elsewhere) they face predatory helicopters, man-eating cars, and a very old dragon with memory loss in their quest to return a special book to its rightful place.

The world building is thoughtful, the characters are engaging, and almost every chapter has some neat and creative idea about the practice of wizardry. (I loved the world gates for travel between universes, which are managed by sentient cats in New York’s Grand Central Station.) Other books have since “borrowed” some of Duane’s ideas, such as the Speech, the universal language of power that wizards use to persuade animals, objects, and even space to do the wishes of the speaker. But I think my favorite part of the story is the celebration of friendship across stereotypical boundaries.

Highly recommended for readers of all ages and for families to read together. ...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Nathaniel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I remember reading this book for the first time and finding an entire new world opened up to me. I was ten then, in search, as the main character here was, for something deeper; something fantastic in everyday life. I read this book, the second, and the third in the series in such quick succession that I couldn't believe I'd actually managed to make my brain process the words that fast, and I was hooked forever on fantasy.

Years later I came back to this book and opened it up, and the magic was ...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Aaron Dettmann rated it did not like it

I think this is the worst book I ever read. Only reason I finished it is because it was so short (and even then it took me a while to slog through it). Didn't even realize it was part of a series when I was reading it, as I had forgotten the reason I had checked it out was because the 6th book in the series made the ALA Teen Top Ten List. Very surprised there was enough interest to create a series after this terrible first book. Some highlights:

p. 10: "A wizard's business is to conserve energy - ...more

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Jul 05, 2009 Destinee Sutton rated it it was ok

Shelves: tween, harry-potter-alternative, fantasy

Part of what makes great fantasy is a great setting, i.e. an original other world that feels real even though it's so different from the world we inhabit. I found this book totally lacking in that department. Nita and Kit (whose names and personalities are too similar--I kept getting them mixed up as I read) start in the real world as normal kids. They meet when they realize they're both aspiring wizards and then they go looking for Nita's lost pen and end up in this horrible, dark alternate uni ...more

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Jun 19, 2018 Sonia Gomes rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: To everyone who believes in magic

Shelves: lit-for-the-young, supernatural

I loved the book, it had me respecting every thing that has been created, by God or by Man, everything has a spark of creation.
Loved Nita's abilities to talk to Nature, there was this patch of grass that Nita's father wanted to get rid of. Nita says, give me some time, she sits on the patch of grass and explains to the grass how her father wanted to rid of them, convinces the grass to go to the neighbour who wanted some grass to grow in his garden and the patch of grass goes to the neighbour.
Th ...more

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Jul 09, 2018 Jasmine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: magic-carpet-books, hmh-books-for-young-readers

It's fine, I'm fine, everything's normal, I'm not sniffling about trees, that's you, you're the one staring very intently at the ceiling to deal with your feelings about a car, we are not even talking about the moon and the white hole, which didn't happen, EVERYTHING IS FINE don't look at me.

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May 12, 2019 Kathryn rated it it was amazing

Yikes, 2 books recently read that have the same theme: light versus dark, good versus evil. And the light and good prevailed! Like those songs..."Sunny Side of the Street" and "This little light of Mine"encourage us to do....just do it! Without the dark side of things one cannot measure the light side. So inject the light into everything and have a damn good time doing that!
I really, really loved this book and its lessons will linger.

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Oct 20, 2012 Kate Sherrod rated it it was amazing

Oh man, it's a good thing a certain someone who talked me into reading Harry Potter this year didn't show these to me until long after I'd done with Hogwarts, because Potter & co. would have suffered even more by comparison with these than they already did with the Greats.

As I found myself explaining to a work colleague who is trying to get her 13-year-old son to read more, among the many reasons Duane's Young Wizards books look to be better than Potter is that their would-be wizards are tea Oh man, it's a good thing a certain someone who talked me into reading Harry Potter this year didn't show these to me until long after I'd done with Hogwarts, because Potter & co. would have suffered even more by comparison with these than they already did with the Greats.

As I found myself explaining to a work colleague who is trying to get her 13-year-old son to read more, among the many reasons Duane's Young Wizards books look to be better than Potter is that their would-be wizards are teaching themselves (with a lot of help from the natural world, which is all quite magical if you're just paying attention) instead of slaving over, e.g., potions in a student cauldron in a dreary classroom for a grade. I like the way Duane has conveyed the pleasures of learning and discovery rather than making the learning process seem like a dreary chore, a set of hoops the impatient student must jump through in order to get to do the cool stuff.

I also like the way Duane has situated magic in the world of Young Wizards. It's got a slight Jedi/Force feel to it in that the practice of magic is one of the things that keeps the universe working (the idea that humanity/intelligent life is the universe's consciousness trying to understand itself is a subtle theme), but in a very reasoned and scientific, rather than a mystical, way. Magic slows down entropy, if it's practiced by the right kind of people, by which is meant people who care enough to make the effort even if it costs them everything. And thus the universe can be safeguarded.

Magic, in this world, then, is a calling rather than a privilege, a practice to be undertaken alongside of, rather than instead of, the rest of one's life in the world. Which means there's no elitism to it, no us versus them mentality, despite the secrecy.*

That's not to say it's not quite a lot of satisfying fun for our two young heroes in this first novel, Nita and Kit. Both of them are nerdy little outcasts with a bent for book-learning (the scene in which Nita comes across this first novel's titular textbook is one every bookworm will recognize, a bit ruefully) and a need to exercise their talents, but of course that means both of them are ostracized according to their lights: the rather passive Kit is a wallflower, the more aggressive and active Nita gets beaten up a lot. But lest this start to sound like a magical Revenge of the Nerds, Nita is more interested in harnessing her budding powers to protect herself from damage and recover a treasured space pen than in tit for tat. And soon, when her spell to recover said pen brings a fascinatingly strange new presence into her and Kit's lives, she's got much more interesting stuff to think about than getting back at some bullies. Like getting to know the trees, especially the rowan tree she's been climbing in her whole young life, who tells her of how the trees have always been watching over and protecting humanity, since they were just another primate screaming in the branches -- and why humanity is worth protecting.

Too, this book does the best job of any I've seen since Fritz Lieber's Our Lady of Darkness of fulfilling the promise inherent in that oft misused genre name, urban fantasy. Here as in the Lieber, we get a true magic of cities, in a radiant and lively good aspect as well as in a creepy and malevolent evil one. And, rarity of rarities, the good aspect is every bit as interesting and vividly imagined and engaging as the evil -- and that's saying a lot, because the foe Nita and Kit and their white hole pal Fred (!) take on is quite possibly the most genuinely heartbreaking and terrifying dark lord I've encountered at least since Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy -- and this being-or-nonbeing, the Starsnuffer, let me say, licks Voldemort and Sauron hollow, as his world is way more interesting and scary than Mordor could ever hope to be. The fire hydrants alone!

And so again I find myself asking, just as I did in my prior post, why the hell isn't this book more famous? Seriously, kids, check this stuff out. Diane Duane is amazevaries.

*I want to make a comparison. If Harry Potter is Big Bang Theory, with muggles standing in for nerds as the class to be either mocked/attacked or protected, but hardly ever respected in their own right (even as it pretends to be a sop to those nerds reading), then Young Wizards is Community. ...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Ashley rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, unfinished-series, treasure-and-adventure, wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey, kid-lit, urban-fantasy

This book is so easy and fast to read but it took me FOREVER to actually read it. I kept picking it up, reading twenty pages, and then putting it down in favor of something else.

Nita is our main character. She's a twelve year old girl living in New York. She's a bit nerdy (her favorite possession is a space pen her uncle gave to her that can write on anything) and she's having trouble with a bully in her class at school. When she's hiding from said bully in the library after school, she happens This book is so easy and fast to read but it took me FOREVER to actually read it. I kept picking it up, reading twenty pages, and then putting it down in favor of something else.

Nita is our main character. She's a twelve year old girl living in New York. She's a bit nerdy (her favorite possession is a space pen her uncle gave to her that can write on anything) and she's having trouble with a bully in her class at school. When she's hiding from said bully in the library after school, she happens across a book called So You Want to Be a Wizard, which turns out to be an actual manual on wizardry that Nita didn't so much find as it sought her out. If she takes the Oath inside it and decides to become a wizard, the book will tailor itself to her magical education. She will also have a responsibility as a wizard to preserve life and fight against entropy, the main objectives of magic. While exploring her new powers, she comes across Kit, a fellow young wizard, and both of them having recently taken their oath, are caught up in a series of events that act as their Test into the ranks of wizardry.

I'm pretty sure if I would have read this book as a kid, I would have loved it. I've never seen magic done quite like this before, and the actual story was pretty great. It had high stakes and everything worked perfectly together. I had two basic issues with the book, though. The first is a big one, and was really my main issue. The characters were so flat and blah. Kit and Nita, aside from both being nerdy and picked on by others, have no identifying characteristics. Not many likes or dislikes. No personalities. They do what they do to advance the plot, and any emotional investment I had in them by the end was secondhand because of the way they both felt after something happened with another character who I actually cared about. I think the main trouble here is that Duane was spent too much time on the action of her story, and not enough on the emotion. Her worldbuilding also suffered.

The world she built was pretty complicated, a mix of science and magic, but it's basically only 3-4 days from the time Nita gets her book until she's making complicated spells and knowing stuff about magic and the magical world like she's been studying it for ages. It was completely unbelievable. And it wouldn't have been that difficult for Duane to just stretch out the time periods! They were completely within her control. It's a shame because if those two things would have been better, that ending would have absolutely slayed me.

Anyway, I will probably continue on with this series because I've learned to give long series more chances to get their hooks in me. But it probably won't be until next year. ...more

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Sep 13, 2014 Badseedgirl rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2014

I’m pretty sure I should not have had as much trouble getting started in So You Want to be A Wizard by Diane Duane as I did. This novel just did not catch me in the beginning, and I’m not sure why. I suspect I found this novel too late in life. If I had read it as a tween/young teen it might have resonated more than reading it as a middle age woman. I guess one thing that threw me off was the bantering amount of physic terminology that I found distracting in preteen kids. Once I got past that, I I’m pretty sure I should not have had as much trouble getting started in So You Want to be A Wizard by Diane Duane as I did. This novel just did not catch me in the beginning, and I’m not sure why. I suspect I found this novel too late in life. If I had read it as a tween/young teen it might have resonated more than reading it as a middle age woman. I guess one thing that threw me off was the bantering amount of physic terminology that I found distracting in preteen kids. Once I got past that, I did enjoy the novel.

Because it is a novel about young wizards learning their skills, much comparison is made between this novel and “Harry Potter.” I think it is really unfair to both novels. First off, although people may have discovered it after “Pottermania,” So You Want to Be a Wizard was actually written in 1983, more than 10 years before JK Rowling spawned her adorable brood of wizards. In Ms. Duane’s novel, the children are basically left to themselves to learn magic by trial and error from a text book. To me this novel reminded me more of Michael Ende’s marvelous The Neverending Story. A story about a young child who becomes engrossed in books, because of an inattentive parent. I know Nita’s parents try to be supportive of her, but let’s be honest, they fail. This child(ren) saves the world on their own, and learns how powerful they are in the process will resonate with any child struggling to fit into a world.

I think it is also important to remember that this novel is about children of color, years before this was an issue with media attention. Although not much is made of it in the novel, Kit (Christopher) is in fact Hispanic, and starts to learn magic because he keeps getting beat up because of his accent.

I’m not sure if I will read more of these novels. There is just a ton of them, 10 in all, and I’m not sure I want to invest more time in them. Not because they were bad but I just don’t know if I can appreciate them like I would have as a young person. 3 of 5 stars
...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Please help me	1	9	Jun 09, 2018 06:05AM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Book Series About Young Woman Discovering She Is a Witch and can Talk to Trees Through Their Leaves [s]	4	33	Nov 04, 2016 04:12AM
So you want to be...: Character Elimiation Game	3	11	Apr 12, 2015 11:42AM
Looking for a Book From My Childhood	2	25	Nov 30, 2014 07:01AM
What's the Name o...: Book about a witch [s]	3	39	Jun 27, 2014 11:51AM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Kids Fiction // Kids Find Ancient Magic Language, Allows For Elemental Control [s]	4	19	Jun 24, 2014 07:09AM

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About Diane Duane

Diane Duane

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Diane Duane has been a writer of science fiction, fantasy, TV and film for more than thirty years.
Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and a ...more