Midnight Magic

Midnight Magic
By: Avi
Copyright: 1999
Scholastic, Inc.

3 Bookmarks out of 5

I should point out to my readers that this book is a children's/young adult book. It would probably appeal mostly to children from 10 to 14 years old. But, Avi is one of my favorite authors from childhood and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to re-live my childhood because I've been reading some pretty heavy books recently, such as Gulag: A History and The History of God. I'm pretty sure that this book ended up in my household from my next door neighbor. She probably lent it over to our house because she enjoyed it. And since my neighbor is not much of a reader, I finally got around to listening to her recommendation ten years after the fact. If she recommends a book, it's generally worth my time to read it.

The best thing about this book in particular is the plot. This book is primarily a mystery and secondarily a historical novel. I usually try to avoid the mystery genre because the suspense usually causes me to skim through it very quickly and miss all the details of the story because I want to know the ending. I purposefully slowed myself down this time around and tried to genuinely enjoy the plot progression. I have to admit, I thought I had the plot figured out about halfway through - but Avi gives the reader a nice twist that even I couldn't figure out. Although, I suppose if you frequently read mysteries you may be better at catching the end before I did. By slowing down through this book, I was able to enjoy the historical facts that riddled the story. As a teacher by training, this would have been a great book to use in the classroom. It opens up history in a fun fashion - although it did contain one factual error. People in 1491 more than likely did know that the world was round, but Avi has his own characters believing otherwise.

One other fact about this book that would have been fun to discuss as a teacher with students would be all the witty sayings that Fabrizio and his master Magnus throw about through the book. Even I had to sit back and think about them for a moment or two, even though I consider myself to be a pretty quick-thinker. Avi could have slimed down with the amount of sayings, though. Frabizio seems to throw them about a lot and it makes the reader wonder how Frabizio learned all this. Does Fabrizio know, himself, how to read? If so, then why does Magnus seem to think of Frabizio as a naive boy? Some of the characterization didn't seem to make much sense.

Which leads me to the point that particularly bothered me about this book - the characters seemed so flat and boring. Being a fan of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I know that Avi is capable of writing dynamic characters and characters that are full of life. Fabrizio is a servant boy whose only aspiration in life is to serve his master. While I enjoy the fact that Avi chose to keep Fabrizio a simple boy and not use a cliche of having servants rise up to be princes or something or other - Fabrizio just doesn't have a lot of depth to make the character believable. Not to mention that as an author of children's books, it would be nice to have a main character that aspires to be something.

Overall, this book contains a great plot that I think readers of all ages could enjoy. But the story falls apart with characters that seem too safe and too flat for the reader to fall in love with. I enjoyed the fact that Avi spent time explaining small details of life in late-fifteenth century Europe - such as castles and kings. But it would have been nice for Avi to touch on the blossoming of the Renaissance at this point in history as opposed to superstitious belief in magic. This would be a great story to read to young children around Halloween - as I did read in one review of Midnight Magic.