You can listen to this episode here.

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Edward Eager’s Half Magic, the first of Eager’s seven books of magical adventures. Four bored siblings living in a Midwestern city in the 1920s find a magic amulet…except it only grants half of what you wish for. We talk about what has and hasn’t held up in the seven decades since Half Magic was published, about Eager’s life, and about the obscure jokes Eager threw in to entertain himself.

The Half Magic children go to see Sandra, a 1924 silent movie (now lost) starring Barbara La Marr. As Mary Grace discusses on the podcast, this movie is not at all appropriate for children. Here’s a still, and you can read the review from Moving Picture World, which didn’t like the move any more than the children did, here.

As Mary Grace mentions, Edward Eager had a career in show business as well as being a children’s writer. You can listen to this YouTube recording of Peggy Lee singing “Good-Bye, John,” lyrics by Eager, and decide whether you agree with her that he was more talented as a writer than as a lyricist.

The original cover of Half Magic appears at the top of the post. Mary Grace and Debby were a bit alarmed by the illustration chosen for the current paperback edition (not by original illustrator N.M. Bodecker), which features two knights who have been chopped into pieces. (Don’t worry, they don’t remain in this state for long.)

Here are links to other books Debby and Mary Grace recommend for fans of Half Magic.

Recommended by Mary Grace (not just because Debby wrote them! They’re wonderful books!):
George Washington and the Magic Hat, by Deborah Kalb
John Adams and the Magic Bobblehead, by Deborah Kalb
Thomas Jefferson and the Return of the Magic Hat, by Deborah Kalb

Recommended by Debby:***
The Time Garden, by Edward Eager
Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth, by Lloyd Alexander
Tom’s Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce
A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

Debby’s post on these books appeared on the website shepherd.com.

You can find Debby’s author interviews on her blog Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.