Category Archives: Fantasy and Magic

Rereading Half Magic by Edward Eager

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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.

Barbara La Marr and Bert Lytell in “Sandra”

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.

Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah reread one of their childhood favorites, Mary Rodgers’ 1972 mother-daughter body-switching story Freaky Friday. They also discuss Rodger’s posthumous 2022 memoir Shy, which was a New York Times Notable Book.

Here’s the original Edward Gorey cover:

And the cover for the sequel, A Billion for Boris:

The cover of the paperback edition Mary Grace read, which left her longing for her 1970s copy, turns out to be nowhere to be found on the internet.

Mentioned in this episode:

The intro to the PBS show Mystery!, with animation based on illustrations by Edward Gorey.

Summer Switch by Mary Rodgers, in which Ape Face and his dad switch bodies, with less-than-hilarious results.

Freaky Monday, a supposedly co-authored by actually more like licensed 2009 addition to the franchise.

The 1976 movie starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.

The 2003 movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.

Vice Versa, F. Anstey’s 1882 novel about a British man who switches bodies with his son.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

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.

Rereading Little Witch and The Little Leftover Witch

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Deborah and Mary Grace celebrated Halloween by reading two books about witches, Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett, which was published in 1953, and The Little Leftover Witch by Florence Laughlin, which was published in 1960. Both books are about lonely little witches who find homes with non-magical families. Deborah had read both books as a child; both were new to Mary Grace.

Here’s the original cover of The Little Witch, with illustrations by Helen Stone. Two of Stone’s other books were selected as Caldecott Honor Books.

Here’s the original cover of The Little Leftover Witch, which gives you some idea of the illustrations by Sheila Greenwald, which Debby enjoyed as a child and missed in the current edition, which doesn’t have illustrations.

Other witch-related books mentioned on the episode:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth Speare (1958)

The Active Enzyme Lemon-Freshened, Junior High School Witch by E. W. Hildick (1973)

The Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum

The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling

And, finally, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg, which was featured on our second episode.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

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.

Rereading The Owl Service by Alan Garner

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You can listen to this episode here.

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah reread Alan Garner’s Carnegie Medal-winning 1967 novel The Owl Service, which tells the story of three teenagers, Alison, Gwyn, and Roger, who find themselves reliving a Welsh legend of love and betrayal. Word to the wise: read it, but not right before bed like Mary Grace did!

The Owl Service has had many editions, and many covers, over the years. Here’s the first-edition cover.

Here’s the current edition that Mary Grace and Deborah read this time around, except it’s much cooler-looking in real life because what looks orange in the photo is actually a shiny copper color.

Here’s a cheesy horror movie-style cover:

And another one:

Here’s a 2021 Guardian profile of Garner.

Mary Grace recommends Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series for fans of The Owl Service.

At the beginning of the book, Alison becomes obsessed with a set of dinner plates with pictures of owls or flowers, depending on how you look at them. As Mary Grace mentions, the plates in the book were inspired by a real-life set that Garner saw at someone’s house. She rashly promised to put a photo of the plates on the website, but it turns out that it’s copyrighted. You can see it at the Bodleian Libraries‘ Facebook page.

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

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.