THE MAGICIAN NEXT DOOR

A homesick girl helps a stranded magician.

Callie is grieving both her mother, who died three years ago, and everything she left back in London after her father moved them to the mountains of Northern Ireland. Her life is further upended when a house mysteriously crash-lands in her garden before turning invisible. The house’s desperate owner, magician Winnifred Potts, asks Callie for help. Winnifred was using a magic substance known as Wanderdust to move her home, but something went wrong, and the Wanderdust scattered. Winnifred can’t leave her house, so Callie must look for the Wanderdust. She enlists her new friend Sam, but before they can start searching, they discover the cause of the disaster: Callie’s homesickness was so severe that it repelled the magic, jeopardizing both Winnifred and her house. After the guilt-ridden Callie attempts to use Winnifred’s magic to return to London, her efforts only make the situation more dire. But Callie’s sudden revelations about friendship and home help her as she decides to put things right, leading to a disappointingly rushed climax. Though the fantastical elements are intriguing, they feel overshadowed by the heavy-handed moral (“Home isn’t a place…Home is the people”). Playful illustrations are interspersed thoughtfully, breaking up the text for younger readers. Callie and Sam are light-skinned, while Winnifred has box braids and is depicted with darker skin.

Whimsical but message-heavy.