This book is a lot of fun, it's exciting, it's not overly scary, and the ending is set up very nicely well in advance (although I must say I didn't see it coming). It's well-written, and if the ethical dilemmas the kids find themselves in aren't very novel, well, at least they make a clear moral message. (Remember, kids, robbing graves is wrong!)
So why only three stars? Well, because even though the writing would normally cause me to give this book four stars, I yanked a star off for the race issues.
Yes, it's gonna be one of those reviews. Deal with it.
There are a lot of, uh, issues in this book, and they're all woven in a messy little package of ick that really mars this otherwise great book.
Let's start with the demographics of the main characters. We've got four kids (and their families, but for the sake of convenience I'll count each family as one unit), three bullies, two magicians, and a mysterious guy whose job I can't divulge for spoiler reasons. And a teacher, and a janitor.
All these people are white and non-Hispanic, in a state where non-Hispanic whites actually make up less than 50% of the population. That's just unrealistic. I should be suspending my disbelief to deal with magic, not messed-up racial demographics.
And I *know* these people are right because of the OTHER big problem in this book: How non-whites are described.
Hoo-boy. The white people are described with a variety of adjectives - "honey-blond hair", "portly", "bleary-eyed in a stained corduroy jacket", "short, pudgy with thick black hair", "blond with curly hair", and on one memorable instant "plump, balding, with a goatee". (The last is not an exact quote.)
The non-whites (all minor characters, I can't think of any that persist for more than a page or two) are described... with their race. They're black, Asian, "Asian with sliver eyes" (wtf?), or Indian. Compare "a black female police officer" with "the police officer, a muscular man with short hair and chiseled cheekbones" and something starts to seem... wrong. It's like the author thinks that simply giving somebody's race is sufficient to describe them. Unless they're white, of course, because the hidden message here (although I'm sure it was unintentional) is that white people a. are normal and b. all look different from each other. The few times another adjective is used, it's something that's stereotypically of that race - a woman is Vietnamese, "small and slight". A crying kid is Asian and also "tiny".
Likewise, when the children change appearance, the book makes a point of mentioning that what changes (and the ONLY thing that changes) is their race. They look like them, but Asian or black or Hawaiian or "full-blooded Native American". The comments they make ("I kinda was hoping for black" or "Now would be a great time for a victory hula") smack of exoticism, and why? Because white people are normal.
I know, I know, he didn't mean anything by it! I'm sure he didn't. I'm sure the author is not really a bigot, and is probably quite a nice person who believes in equal rights for everybody, etc. etc. etc. This does not mean that the underlying message in these lopsided descriptions isn't there.
There's also the thing with the candystore wooden Indian, an "ancient chief" with feathers and buckskin and a tomahawk, who looks "weary but courageous". He also - SPOILER ALERT! - comes alive midway through the book and violently steals an important object. I'm actually gonna give this one a pass on the (admittedly dubious) grounds that the owner of the wooden Indian presumably got/carved it way way way back in the day when this sort of casual racism was widely considered to be okay, and anyway, by that point in the book we know she's evil.
I took away one star, and I suggest that you read this book before you buy it, especially if you plan to use it in a classroom. It's not really the lack of non-white characters (if that's your criteria, the unfortunate reality is you'll find yourself with very few books indeed that you can read with your kids, and most of the ones you have will be depressingly "uplifting" instead of fun), but more, as I said, how they're described. The cumulative effect of all this left me feeling exhausted, and I'm not sure I want to read this with my young nieces.
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