The Magic City

Rating:
Summary: The Book I Spent Ten Years Looking For...
Review: Edith Nesbit is one of the most imaginitive children's writers around - and she's been around for a hundred years!

This is her best book. A boy dreams and finds himself in an equally real world, made up of the pretend cities he's made while awake.

I read The Magic City back in 1989 and spent years searching in second hand books stores for my own copy until I tracked it down on amazon.com!

Rating:
Summary: Nesbit's best
Review: More than a quarter of a century ago my sisters and I were captivated by E. Nesbit, and particularly by THE MAGIC CITY. Long unavailable (I have scoured used book shops and the Net for copies for various children) it is great to have it easily available once more. I am happy to report that my own daughter was as taken with it as her aunts and I a generation earlier, and like us she at once began building magic cities of her own. I realize that I risk the wrath of Potterites everywhere, but I suspect that in a hundred years children and their parents will still be enjoying The Magic City while Harry is at most the subject of earnest dissertations on odd trends in the early 21st century. If you have a spark of imagination and an eager child handy, grab this book.

Rating:
Summary: If you love Harry Potter, try this!
Review: Years before I even heard of Harry Potter, my mother picked up the 1910 Macmillan hardcover version of this book at a garage sale for a mere fifty cents. (Imagine, a turn-of-the-century copy of a great book for fifty cents!) At first I was put off by its volume (333 pages with illustrations) but I managed to lap up every last word of it...about seven times, I think.

Philip Haldane, our hero, and his half-sister Helen are orphans. Helen has been Philip's sister, teacher and playmate for what seemed like all his life, and there wasn't a shadow of a doubt in his mind that this would go on for ever; he wanted it to. But the unimaginable happens -- Helen marries and goes honeymooning around Europe, leaving Philip at his new residence, friendless and bitter. But soon his new, seemingly dreary life is changed by his embarking on an exciting adventure, so splendid and picturesque that he never would have dreamed that he had built it with his own hands. You see, Philip had always played building games, and he built not with plain old building blocks but with...well, everything -- everything from ink-wells to bronze Egyptian figurines! And it was while he was in the depths of his misery and pining harder than ever to see his sister again that he, the Creator, discovered it -- his Magic City -- and its delightful secrets.

Now, to look at it from a Harry Potter fan's viewpoint. I shouldn't be giving any clues, you really should have read this book at least once before comparing it with HP, but I'll just say...Philip is of course the Harry Potter of this book, but he is also the Ron Weasley because of his initial malice towards his new stepsister, Lucy -- the Hermoine Granger of this book. The Grey Nurse is the Snape/Malfoy/Voldermort figure of this book. The Great Sloth is rather like Scabbers, and Polly is somewhat Hedwig-like. And Mr. Noah is almost EXACTLY like Professor Dumbledore; if you look at the part of the book when he goes to visit the prison, you'll know what I mean :)

If that still doesn't grab the average Potter fan's attention, how about this: J.K. Rowling favours E. Nesbit as one of her must-reads! Enjoy...