The Lost Magician is the new book from the wonderful author of The Last Wild trilogy, Piers Torday.
Simply by opening a book in a magical library, four children find themselves in a world called Folio where the characters from fairy tales are real and locked in battle with data spewing fact robots. The magician who created the library is missing and war has broken out in his absence. The children, Simon, Patricia, Larry and Evelyn, are themselves escaping their own experiences of London during the Blitz. These must surely be the most perfect ingredients for an epic adventure!
In articles that I have read about the book, Piers has spoken about the relationship between his new story and C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. He was inspired by his love of the Narnia stories to create the world in The Lost Magician, Folio, where it is not Christianity that is the under attack but the imagination. His book is an homage, using the allegorical fantasy trope to reflect on our world today. A battle is taking place in the world of the library between the stories and the facts, all the while the real threat is the 'never reads'. For those who love the Narnia stories, like me, the echoes and clever parallels add a layer of joy and satisfaction to the reading experience. However, if you've never read C. S. Lewis, then it won't make the blind bit of difference to your enjoyment of the book.
Me reading The Lost Magician in a field on the edge of a woods. Magic.
This book is so much more than a reimagining of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The Lost Magician is a classic tale that explores the power of reading. You'll be on the edge of your seat as four war-weary children enter a magical library, and characters you know like the back of your hand come alive and don armour for the kind of battle you've never imagined before. An original, and imaginative war cry for the importance of reading and the magic of libraries.
I hear that The Lost Magician is the beginning of a series, so I'm excited to read the next adventure in Folio.