Spell Sweeper
by Lee Edward Födi
GENRE: Children’s Middle Grade Fantasy
BLURB:
There's nothing magical about wizard school
. . . at least, not for Cara Moone.
Most wizard kids spend their days practicing spells and wielding wands, but Cara? She’s on the fast track to becoming a MOP (a.k.a. Magical Occurrence Purger). You see, when a real wizard casts a spell, it leaves behind a residue called spell dust—which, if not disposed of properly, can cause absolute chaos in the nonmagical world. It’s a MOP’s job to clean up the mess.
And no one makes more of a mess than Harlee Wu. Believed to be the Chosen One, destined to save the magical world, Harlee makes magic look easy. Which makes her Cara’s sworn nemesis. Or she would be, if she even knew Cara existed.
Then one of Harlee’s spells leaves something downright dangerous behind it: a rift in the fabric of magic itself. And when more rifts start to appear around the school, all in places Harlee has recently used magic, Cara is pretty sure the so-called “Chosen One” isn’t going to save the world. She’s going to destroy it.
It will take more than magic to clean up a mess this big. Fortunately, messes are kind of Cara’s thing.
Excerpt:
* * *
Brooms aren’t for flying,
not even when it comes to wizards
* * *
These are the essential items in a spell sweeper’s kit:
Broom
Most people think broom + wizard = flying. But take it from someone who actually attends wizard school—no one straddles a broom and jumps from the top of a Dragonsong tower unless they’ve drunk too much of Madame Kree’s secret-recipe Halloween punch.
Goggles
Good for protecting your eyes from residue splatter or from the venom that an attacking creature might spray in your direction. I only use them when absolutely necessary because even wizards don’t seem to have conjured up a solution for preventing fog-up.
Sweeper scarf
These are woven from the fiber of elf’s breath (a very purple and very pretty plant), which has excellent properties for filtering out toxic fumes. We wear our scarves around our necks and pull them up around our faces when required.
Steel-toed boots
Because when dragons stomp, they apparently don’t mess around.
Gloves
Made with special residue-repellant material. A pretty good idea, because you definitely don’t want magical gunk under your fingernails.
Utility belt
Next to my broom, this is my most important piece of equipment because it’s where I store my broom snippers and vials of stain removers and neutralizers.
Barricade tape
When we do a purge in Bliss territory, it’s procedure to rope off the entire area to ensure no one stumbles upon any magical activity. Our tape reads: Chemical Spill Containment Site: Do Not Cross—because no Bliss would take Danger: Feral Magic at Work seriously.
Miniature dustpan
Useful in both the wizarding and the Bliss worlds.
Flashlight
Same.
My Review:
Spell Sweeper is a thrilling magical read that swept me away from the first page and I was hooked forevermore. I really enjoyed the main character, Cara Moone. She was a very inquisitive person, never taking things at face value always wanting to know more. She paid attention to what people said and what they didn’t say.
Her mind never rested as it was always looking for more in what people didn’t say. I liked that if she didn’t know the answer to something she went in search of it. Cara Moone was like a private investigator of sorts.
But of course, she wasn’t, no Cara was more like a magic sweeper. When someone performed magic it left behind what is called spell dust which could become dangerous. Cara’s job was to sweep up the dust magic left behind. Cara was known as a MOP, Magical Occurrence Purger. Cara is a MOP because she failed her sixth-grade standardized tests.
There are a lot of lies, secrets, and betrayals in Spell Sweeper that keep it interesting and the pages rolling. Don’t get me wrong Spell Sweeper is a fun read that will have you laughing right out loud on more than one occasion. Cara’s hashtag using grandmother is hilarious.
I really enjoyed reading about Cara Moone and the dust magic and I hope to see more of Cara and the rest of the Spell Sweeper cast in future books.
I would recommend Spell Sweeper to middle age children or anyone who likes a good magical read! One-click your copy of this thrilling, magical read, Spell Sweeper today!
Lee Edward Födi is an author, illustrator, and specialized arts educator—or, as he likes to think of himself, a daydreaming expert. He is the author of several books for children, including The Secret of Zoone and the Kendra Kandlestar series. He is a co-founder of the Creative Writing for Children Society (CWC), a not-for-profit program that helps kids write their own books. He has the joy of leading workshops for kids in Canada, the US, Korea, China, Thailand, and other places here and there. Lee lives in Vancouver, where he shares a creative life with his wife Marcie and son Hiro.
Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
Purchase links:
2 comments:
Sounds like a great book.
Thank you for hosting, and for your kind review! So glad you enjoyed Cara and her spell sweeping adventure!
Post a Comment