MAGICALIA

While seeking her kidnapped father, an 11-year-old English girl is astonished to discover that they both belong to a secret community of people who are gifted with the ability to conjure magic creatures from remembered emotions.

Eva Ibbotson meets Edward Lear in this extravagantly silly series opener. Even before Elizabeth “Bitsy” Wilder’s widowed father is abruptly whisked away in the first chapter, a horned, purple, bathtub-size hamstoceros wrecks her home. This calamity is followed in short order by encounters with a teeming horde of other winsome magicores with specific abilities and comical names, such as the huffluff, scutterflix, and flabberghast. Some, like the aptly named doomicorn and a dangerous spiderpede capable of shooting “acidic snot bombs,” add excitement to the ensuing thrill ride. Bitsy, who presents white, and her British Sri Lankan bestie, Kosh Ranasinghe, work together to track down Bitsy’s dad with help from a remarkable reference book that flips open to provide just the information they need. Kosh turns out to be cosmodynamic, like Bitsy and her dad, and the friends compete with evil chaos-conjurors in the hunt for a prized magical artifact called Arkwright’s Gyrowheel. The end leaves the villains temporarily thwarted but far from vanquished, setting things up for the sequel. Wyatt’s whimsical, detailed spot illustrations open each chapter, highlighting a charming array of magicores.

Adventures aplenty, with oodles of scene-stealing monsters both mega and mini.