Half Magic
core novel 1954 Tales of Magic
Record
| First published | 1954 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.95 (38,503 ratings, collected 2026-10-06) |
| Page count | 192 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780152020699 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
It is a hot, boring summer in a Midwestern town in the 1920s, and Jane, Mark, Katharine and Martha, four children whose mother works long hours and whose father is dead, expect nothing from it but library books. Then Jane picks up what looks like a nickel on the sidewalk and finds that it grants wishes, but only by halves: a wish to be on a desert island lands them in a desert with no island, their mother gets halfway home before a kindly stranger rescues her, and the cat, wished able to talk, gabbles half-sense. Once the children work out that they must wish for twice what they want, the summer fills with adventures, among them a tilt with Sir Launcelot and a riot in a department store, before the charm's magic, and the stranger who keeps turning up, change the family for good.
Where it sits
- Universe: Tales of Magic
- Series: Tales of Magic core; position 1 of 7 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Edward Eager
Notes
- From the series record (Tales of Magic): Edward Eager's seven novels of magic breaking into the lives of ordinary American children, written in open homage to E. Nesbit: two linked pairs (Half Magic and Magic by the Lake; Knight's Castle and The Time Garden, whose children are the first pair's children and cousins), two about a possibly magic wishing well, and Seven-Day Magic, in which the children meet characters from the earlier books.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series Tales of Magic: position 1 of 7: next Knight's Castle (1956)
Sources
← Tales of Magic dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.