by Ted Naifeh
Grown-ups easily forget how cruel and harsh kids can be, their own memories weathered by age. Courtney, the heroine of this series, leaves the big city to live with her parents at the home of her uncle, a mysterious and solitary old geezer. Whatever Courtney expects from her new environment, soon she realizes that she doesn’t fit in. Instead of trying to change herself, she becomes solitary herself. This probably would be the end of the tale, if she hadn’t found some spellbooks that are the property of her uncle. Intrigued she begins to explore the world of magic.
And that’s where the book comes back to the theme of kids and how they act. Not only are the other kids rather cruel at times, which is something you see often enough in kids fiction (and with the heroine rising above that and leading a ragtag groups of misfits to reclaim their place in the local social order). The difference to most stuff is that Courtney is not that much different in her dealings with other kids, she can be rather cruel herself. Early on another outcast from school is eaten by a goblin, but Courtney doesn’t show much remorse or agonizing about it.
And her experiments with magic aren’t to better anything, but first and foremost to help herself. Which doesn’t mean that Courtney is no sympathetic heroine, far from it. Her sometimes gruff behavior and the few moments of genuine emotional reaction show a kid whose coming to grips with certain facets of growing up as an outsider, but who at times also embraces who she is, warts and everything included. At the end of this first book Courtney has gained a rather good sense of her self and learned to live with who she is, even if that means being solitary and unpopular.
Rating: 5/5
