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Summary: Young Wizards Afoot
Review: One of the fantasies that many children have is to have some kind of power. This fantasy is particularly strong when children are in elementary school and they so often feel powerless or helpless. Juanita (Nita) Callahan and Christopher (Kit) Rodriguez fall into this category. Kit has been advanced a couple of grades in school, so he is teased for his intelligence and his size. Juanita tends to speak her mind, which frequently gets her in trouble with the supposedly cool crowd.Juanita is in the library one day, hiding out from the ever-present bullies, when she runs across a book titled "So You Want to Be a Wizard." At first Nita wonders whether the book is some sort of joke, or fictional. After she reads the Wizard's Oath, she soon discovers that the book is remarkable in how it keeps itself up-to-date as information about the world and the skill level of its reader changes. Nita also discovers that she has become a wizard. Nita soon meets Kit and discovers that she is not the only wizard in the world. One of the first requirements of being a wizard is to go on an Ordeal, which has a level of difficulty that that matches the power of the wizards involved. Nita and Kit are quite powerful and they go up against the Lone One in a world he made to prevent the Lone One from unmaking the entire universe. In the course of trying to keep the level of entropy in the universe at the lowest level possible, and keeping the Lone One from unmaking the universe, Kit and Nita find themselves in situations where they risk death. At one point in the book it is only through the sacrifice of two remarkable beings that Kit and Nita survive their sojourn into the Lone One's world. While Diane Duane wrote this story about children in elementary school, I feel that it is a very mature story in many ways. This story does have a number of intense moments and may be unsuitable for some children under the age of 8 or 9. Additionally, Diane's vocabulary may present an additional hurdle for some ages. However, the story does not treat children as persons to be protected by adults, and the children find that they do have power to affect their world. One balance Diane brought into the book is an extremely strong code of ethics. Wizards must behave very morally or bad things can happen to them. This book is a worthy introduction to the Young Wizards series and an enjoyable read.
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