Just as Saturday mornings were reserved for kids’ cartoons back in the 50s and 60s, PWR reserves Saturday mornings for recommendations of kids’ books.

This week, 10/7, the book I have chosen to review was donated to my bookstore, Rae’s Reads. It had no cover, and I began reading it to see what kind of book it was. Since it is over 360 pages long, I recommend it to older readers, perhaps grades 5 and up, or to be enjoyed as a “read-a-chapter-before-bed” ritual each night by a parent or grandparent.

The boy on the cover in the rowboat is Oscar, a boy from an earlier time who wrote The Book of Story Beginnings only to find that his stories have come true. The house in the background is the house of his sister, Lavonne, who grew up telling everyone she saw Oscar disappear rowing on a sea around the land-locked house of their childhood.

The other main character, Lucy, is a modern day girl whose father inherits said house from his aunt, Lavonne. Magic and changing people into cats and fathers into birds are but a few of the strange occurrences that happen in this fantasy story that has all the appeal and humor of Harry Potter plus the mystery and problem solving of a Nancy Drew mystery. We meet such fanciful characters as the King who loved cats and his Queen who loved birds, who were estranged when one of the King’s cats ate one of the Queen’s birds. It doesn’t help that Lucy’s father experiments with Aunt Lavonne’s notebooks full of spells and potions and is changed into a crow who flies to the magical island of the King and Queen. How Lucy and Oscar recreate the magical sea, are aided by pirates, a female captain and her many children which constitute her crew, and Oscar’s story beginnings play out, changing the narrative and outcome of their adventure provide many exciting, page-turning-adventures.

As an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it as a fanciful “darned good read.”