'Bad Magic' would likely go over well for your 8-12 year old. The main character Clay is a skateboarder whose well-meaning parents send him off to a summer camp for problem children after Clay is accused of putting graffiti on his school. Forget that Clay is innocent, forget that little is known about how the camp is run or that there is an active volcano on the island, Clay's befuddled parents send him off for an adventure!The story has illustration's throughout the story and the author has included side notes to the story which are great. The side notes include factoids on history, word origins, and pop culture which add to the story. The one weakness may be the length of the story (book is almost 400 pages long). Although the plot starts out strong and easily capture's the readers interest, it starts to drag a bit by the end. All in all a pretty good story that younger readers will likely enjoy. Before you go any further reading this review, please understand that I am a very critical person. If I had just happened upon this book by chance I probably would have given it three stars, but because Pseudonymous Bosch wrote one of the most entertaining series I have read for children, the Secret Series,I have to say this book fell way short. There were so many problems I don't even know where to begin. Basically everything I loved about his first series is used in this book as well, but it feels like a used up rag that has been unwashed and reused over and over again. He knew he had something good the first time around and I feel like at this point he is just milking it. The other thing that bothered me about his style was that it was used in a similar was as the Secret Series, but not enough. It was like he couldn't make up his mind. Did he want to continue using that "old dirty rag" or be creative and come up with something new. Instead, he has something in between that is just a mess. Next rant. I don't like the tie in to the Secret Series. If you haven't read those books, then I don't think you would get a lot of the references in this book. And there aren't really enough hints to let you know that the references are alluding to his previous series. Instead a reader will end up reading an okay book, but I'm not sure if it is good enough to drag their interest into the Secret Series, therefore they will never get the references. On top of that, just a personal preference, when a series is done, it's done. Don't kill it and ruin it by making some crap tie in. Now speaking of crap. I don't like some of the language choice in this book. I understand the middle school target audience, and I'm not naive to think that a middle school student does not swear, but you don't have to encourage it by putting words like "suck" in a book. I don't feel like it really added to anything, and in fact his whole "Bad Word" thing was almost more confusing than anything else. Not needed. There were a couple of other times when I thought "Really? That was your word choice?" Maybe these words were in the Secret Series and I don't remember, but I just feel like they stood out in this book. There needs to be a stamp on this book's front cover, a la Bosch's style: WARNING. THIS BOOK STINKS BUT MY PREVIOUS SERIES ROCKS. DON'T LET THIS BOOK KEEP YOU FROM READING THAT SERIES!
What do You think about Bad Magic (2014)?
The way the author express the story is just awesome.we are not only reading it,we are drag into the book.
—sparrow
OMG a sequel series :DD *dying to read this*
—tori
