So You Want to Be a Wizard (2003)
So You Want to Be a Wizard is a 2003 juvenile fiction book written by Diane Duane.
Nita Callahan hides from the bullies in the library, and that is where the book finds her: a battered manual promising anyone who reads the oath a place among wizards. She takes it. The work turns out to be real, and so does the cost. Paired with Kit Rodriguez, a boy from across town, she learns that magic is a kind of service, spoken in the language the world was made in. Their first assignment carries them into a warped mirror-Manhattan where the entropy at the heart of things has a name. Diane Duane treats young wizardry as duty, not escape.
Quick answers
What is So You Want to Be a Wizard about?
Nita Callahan hides from the bullies in the library, and that is where the book finds her: a battered manual promising anyone who reads the oath a place among wizards. She takes it. The work turns out to be real, and so does the cost. Paired with Kit Rodriguez, a boy from across town, she learns that magic is a kind of service, spoken in the language the world was made in. Their first assignment carries them into a warped mirror-Manhattan where the entropy at the heart of things has a name. Diane Duane treats young wizardry as duty, not escape.
When was So You Want to Be a Wizard published?
So You Want to Be a Wizard was published on 1 October 2003.
Who made So You Want to Be a Wizard?
So You Want to Be a Wizard was written by Diane Duane.
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So You Want to Be a Wizard in our writing
A few thoughts on So You Want to Be a Wizard
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch runs on the same engine, a grieving kid handed a magic book that opens onto a second world he has to set right. For the everyday-duty side of magic, Kiki's Delivery Service treats a young witch's power as ordinary work with real weight. Both keep the wonder without softening the responsibility.
Ordinary kids who discover magic is real and it's actually work
Nita finds a manual in the library and learns wizardry means real responsibility, not escape. A Wizard of Earthsea treats magic as a discipline with consequences the moment it's misused, The Tombs of Atuan hands its heroine a duty forced on her since childhood, Sabriel inherits a dangerous calling passed down through her family, and Kiki's Delivery Service turns young witchcraft into an apprenticeship owed to the whole town.
Portals into a stranger version of your own city or world
Nita and Kit's first mission drops them into a warped Manhattan sitting behind the real one. The City of Ember hides a civilization underground behind a city no one above sees, Howl's Moving Castle rearranges a familiar Europe through one moving door, The Magician's Nephew opens the first passage into Narnia through a pool of rings, and Ni no Kuni pulls its hero into a parallel world mirroring his own.
Kids swept into an ancient fight to protect their own world
Nita and Kit sign on as wizards in service to something bigger than themselves, a duty other portal fantasies hand their young heroes too. Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark Is Rising pull ordinary children into a struggle between Light and Dark that predates them by centuries, while Redwall and Mossflower send young woodland heroes to defend their home from invaders far more dangerous than they're prepared for.