Posts Tagged: Middle Grade

I received this book for free from Scholastic in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

From New York Times bestselling authors Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins comes the hilarious and heartfelt story of a group of magical misfits.

Nory Horace is nine years old. She's resourceful, she's brave, she likes peanut butter cookies. Also, she's able to transform into many different animals. Unfortunately, Nory's shape-shifting talent is a bit wonky. And when she flunks out of her own father's magic academy, Nory's forced to enter public school, where she meets a group of kids whose magic is, well, different.

This new, offbeat series from hit authors Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins chronicles the misadventures of Nory and her oddball friends, who prove that upside-down magic definitely beats right side up.

This book was all sorts of cute, but it didn’t blow me away. I have to be honest, most of the reason I picked it up was because the cover is so adorable. I’m not even a cat person, but seriously, look at it!! Okay, so basically Nory is able to do magic, as are mostly everyone in this book. Her father is even the headmaster or something at the most elite magic school there is. Nory needs to get in. Except, her magic isn’t right. She has it for sure, but it doesn’t really work the way she wants it to. This causes her to fail the test and get put in a different school in the Upside-Down Magic class for those who can’t do their magic right. There are some entertaining parts, and some really touching parts in this book. It’s a great book to teach kids about acceptance and being yourself, but with a touch of fun and magic.

Nory kind of annoyed me, thinking that she is better than everyone and doesn’t belong in a class with others who can’t do their magic correctly. I did understand though since she has a lot of pressure to be great. She initially makes friends in the class, but then things go really wrong and everyone turns their back on her. She needs to learn how to get her friends back, and more importantly for her, how to fix her magic. She’s one determined girl, and really does have a good heart.

This book was all sorts of fun. All the kids in the class are so entertaining with how their magic goes wrong. At first they are all upset that they can’t do things right, but eventually start to learn that there is nothing wrong with their magic. It’s different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.They really do form a great friendship with each other and learn a lot along the way. I thought there was a great message in this book and it was so cute to read about all the magic shenanigans. Nory’s combo animals sound so funny and ridiculous. I gave this book to my neighbor who is 9 and she absolutely loved it and has read it twice already.

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