The Magician's Boy

A Boy works for a Magician.

The Boy polishes the Magician's wands, and catches the rabbits that the Magician pulls out of hats. But the Boy's favorite job is operating the puppets for the Magician's famous puppet play, "Saint George and the Dragon" -- until one terrible day when, in the middle of a performance, the Boy can't find the Saint George puppet. The Magician is furious. He points a long magical finger at the Boy, and -- poof! -- the Boy is suddenly in the strange Land of Story, where he must find Saint George.

The Boy's hunt for Saint George is full of adventures with oddly familiar people. He saves the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe from losing her children; he spoils the wolf's plan to eat Little Red Riding Hood; and he narrowly escapes being eaten by the Giant at the top of Jack's beanstalk. But the Boy's last adventure is the most amazing of all -- and changes his life forever. No child who reads this delightful tale by master storyteller Susan Cooper is likely to forget it.

Susan Cooper is one of our foremost children’s authors; her classic five-book fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her many books have won the Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and been shortlisted five times for the Carnegie Medal. She combines fantasy with history in?Victory (a Washington Post Top Ten for Children novel), King of Shadows and Ghost Hawk, and her magical?The Boggart and the Monster, second in a trilogy, won the Scottish Arts Council’s Children’s Book Award. Susan Cooper lives on a saltmarsh island in Massachusetts, and you can visit her online at TheLostLand.com.

Serena Riglietti has illustrated many books for children worldwide, including the Italian editions of the Harry Potter series. She lives with her family in Italy. For more information visit her Web site at www.serenariglietti.it.