Midnight Magic - Hardcover

Avi, *

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590360353 ISBN 13: 9780590360357

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 1999

Synopsis

Night after night, a ghost appears in the royal castle Pergamontio, terrifying the princess. Mangus the Magician doesn't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't stop him from being charged with finding this one. The King demands that Mangus free his daughter from the torment of the ghost...otherwise, the magician will pay with his life. Mangus's only hope is his faithful, street-smart servant boy, Fabrizio, who must solve the mystery of the ghost using logic and reason - and a bit of magic of his own.

About this title

About the Author

Avi, who goes by the name his twin sister gave him when they were about one year old, is the author of more than 30 books and winner of more than 90 awards, including the Newbery Medal and two Newbery Honors. His work spans many genres - historical fiction, coming-of-age, comedy, mystery, and fantasy. A former librarian and father of three grown sons, Avi was raised in Brooklyn and now lives in Denver, Colorado. For more information about Avi, visit: avi-writer.com and scholastic.com/tradebooks

Reviews

Grade 5-9-Avi takes readers to 15th-century Italy in this entertaining tale of mystery and intrigue. Twelve-year-old Fabrizio is the servant of Mangus the Magician. When the king's daughter claims to have seen a ghost, the magician and the boy are summoned to the castle. The evil Count Scarazoni wants to prove the ghost is not real so that his wedding to the princess will not be postponed. Young Fabrizio uses trickery, recklessness, and bravado to ferret out clues, spying in castle halls and secret passages. His master, meanwhile, relies on pure reason to reach the truth. Between the two of them, they are able to unveil a web of plots and deceptions, and then find a way to thwart the count and save their own skins. The quick pace and several plot twists will keep readers turning pages. The mystery will keep them guessing, but it never becomes too complicated to follow. Fabrizio makes an appealing hero. His cleverness is often outdone by the schemes of others involved, but his courage and curiosity make up the difference. The boy often injects witty aphorisms into his conversation, and his enthusiasm and energy contrast entertainingly with the calm wisdom of his master. The villainous count is less fully drawn, as is the king, but the queen and the princess develop entertainingly as the story progresses. Most of the tale takes place within the "castello," and descriptions of the dark hallways, hidden staircases, and gloomy dungeon make a delightfully atmospheric setting for this historical mystery.
Steven Engelfried, Deschutes County Library, Bend, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Taut and suspenseful, this vivid mystery set in an imaginary kingdom of Renaissance Italy is vintage Avi," said PW in a starred review. "With snappy dialogue, nonstop action and lavishly embroidered period backdrops, this will please the author's fans and may well win over some new ones." Ages 10-14.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Conspiracies, intrigue, murder, deceit, apparitions, dusty secret passages, false identities, a clever investigator, and his loyal if credulous young servant: Avi's new page-turner has it all. Not long after scholarly old Mangus is forced into renouncing magical powers he never claimed to possess, he is abruptly summoned to the nearby Castello Pergamontio; it seems that Princess Teresina, 10, claims to have seen a ghost. His servant and narrator, Fabrizio, soon discovers that the situation is far from cut-and-dried; the heir, Prince Lorenzo, is gone, perhaps murdered, and the princess is about to be secretly married to sinister Count Scarazoniunless the superstitious King Claudio calls the wedding off. Mangus, who doesnt believe in the supernatural, says the ghost is not real, but Fabrizio has no doubt after seeing a gesticulating, weirdly lit figure. Then Teresina's tutor is found dead. Enmeshing his protagonist in webs of conflicting plots and alliances, Avi brings the suspenseful plot to a climactic boil in which Scarazoni is tricked into confessing that he killed both the tutor and the princeor tried to, as Lorenzo has been around the whole time, disguised as a kitchen boy. Readers, especially fans of John Bellairs's books, will be riveted from page one. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Avi continues to write across genres, this time offering a medieval mystery that will keep readers guessing to the very end. Fabrizio, the servant boy of the magician Mangus, gets embroiled in palace intrigue when Mangus is called to the castle to ascertain whether 10-year-old Princess Teresina has truly seen a ghost as she claims. Count Scarazoni, the king's closest advisor and Teresina's intended, wants the ghost to be a fiction. Teresina wants the king and others to believe that the ghost is that of her missing brother. Both the unwilling Mangus and the meddling Fabrizio become entangled in a conspiracy that could lead to their deaths. Avi provides as many twists and turns as there are secret corridors and hidden rooms in Teresina's massive palace. Most of the time these bends in the plot heighten the tension, once even providing some heart-stopping action. However, especially at the book's conclusion, some of the explanations of previous actions get a bit convoluted, and kids may have to read the ending more than once before everything makes sense. They may not mind too much, though, because the combination of magic and mystery is pretty irresistible. Ilene Cooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590360353
• ISBN 13: 9780590360357
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256