Wizards: Stories of Mischief, Magic and Mayhem

by Jennifer Schwamm Willis (Editor)

Before the kids sit down at the computer or turn on the television, hand them Wizards, where they can spend the night next door to a man-eating troll, accompany a boy on his first day at wizard school, or take a ride on the North Wind. The Harry Potter series has created a hunger for great fantasy literature amongst children and their parents, many of whom have never read such masters of the medium as C. S. Lewis, T. H. White, Roald Dahl, or E. Nesbit. Now the editors of the Adrenaline series have moved into a new genre with the same attention to great stories, great characters, and great writing that has made Adrenaline the most successful series of its kind. In addition to the above writers, Wizards draws upon a rich load of forgotten classics (without which there would be no Harry Potter) by such authors as Jane Yolen, George MacDonald, Frances Hodgson Burnett, A. Philippa Pearce, Nicholas Stuart Gray, John Bellairs, and Edward Eager.

Genres: Fantasy, Childrens, Short Stories, Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2001

Reviews

[Cherylann · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a reader, I'm not a fan of collections of anything. I don't know why. Maybe it's a side effect of basal reading programs in the 70s. Anyway, Wizards was not much different than other anthologies I've read. Some of the pieces were great. Some were mediocre. Some didn't appeal to me at all. What was most troubling to me was that many of the stories chosen for this volume I would have preferred to have a storyteller tell the tale. Some of the pieces came directly from an oral tradition, and I think that the telling was lost when the story was put down on paper. Reading this book became a chore to me. I hate when reading is a chore.

[Deanna Sutter · Rating 2 out of 5]

We had to take this book back to the library so we weren't able to read more in it. The only story that we did read was selections from Beowulf. The other stories that we didn't get to that I would have liked to were: Alice in Wonderland, the Snow Queen, the Secret Garden, and the Odyssey.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best but OK. It was more like 2 1/2 stars, in my opinion.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is only about a chapter of each story in it. It's great if you are curious about certain books or authors.