Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Hatching Magic
Illustrator: Omar Rayyan
Fiction
For ages 8 to 12
Simon and Schuster, 2006 ISBN: 978-1416924975
Wycca is a wyvern on a quest. More than anything she wants to find a quiet, undisturbed place where she can build her nest and lay her egg in peace. Somehow such a place is proving hard to find and in the end Wycca travels down a magic bolt hole. She ends up Elsewhere, which in this case happens to be present day Boston – a long way from her thirteen century English home.
Wycca’s wizard master, Gideon, has no choice but to follow his pet and familiar for he fears that his enemy and half-brother Kobold might be trying to get his evil hands on Wycca. If Kobold succeeds he will be able to use the dragon against her master to dreadful effect. Thankfully Gideon does not have to wander around Boston on his own for long. Iain Merlin O’Shea finds him and being a fellow wizard, promises to help Gideon find Wycca.
In the meantime a young girl called Theodora Oglethorpe finds a special wizard card that Gideon accidentally dropped. She does not know what she has found of course but she cannot help feeling that there is something very special about the card. Theodora is a huge fan of wyverns but she certainly never expects to see a real one. Quite by accident she uses magic to summon Wycca and in so doing she sets a whole course of misadventures into motion. Soon she has Kobold, Kobold’s demon servant Febrys, Gideon, and Merlin all looking for her and there is no knowing what they will do when they find her.
In this delightful magical adventure, readers will quickly find themselves caught up in the exploits of the respective characters. Each one of them has his or her own personal problems to deal with on top of which there is the problem of the missing dragon and all that loose magic to content with. A wonderful state of semi-chaos ensues and in the end it is poor lost Theodora who ends up saving the day, with a little help from a certain wyvern who has a penchant for chocolate.
