Karen's Magician

Synopsis: Karen is in the big house with her father's side of the family, enjoying jumping on the leaves and playing with her brother Andrew in November. Later, Karen's father takes Karen, Andrew and David Michael to Stamford Connecticut to see Mr. Wizard and his magic show. At the show, Mr. Wizard asks for a volunteer to give a penny for his magic act, and Andrew decides to give his special souvenir penny, which the magician says he will give back after the show. However, after the show gets over, the magician doesn't give back the penny, and Andrew thinks he would never get it back because the magician used real magic to make it disappear. The next day in class, Ms. Colman tells the students that they are going to have an Election Day to elect representatives for Fun Night to sell tickets. Karen volunteers to being a representative. Ms. Colman makes specific rules on how representatives to get votes, in that they should not bribe for votes, they shouldn't vote during class, and they shouldn't make false promises. However, Pamela, Hank and Chris, who are competing with Karen break all these rules, and get more popularity than Karen, who is just following the rules. Does Karen have a chance of winning the election and representing Fun Night? Can she also help Andrew get his souvenir penny again? Review: I enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was very well written, and I liked how both the stories merged in the end. I felt this book had a little of everything in it; Humor: When Pamela and her friends try to say tongue twisters at the show; Shocking surprises: when Morbidda Destiny reveals who her brother is; Drama: When Karen realizes what her competitors are doing to win the election, and so on. This book also teaches a valuable lesson to children in that they should not believe everything they see, and think that the magic magicians perform is actually real. The illustrations provided by Susan Tang were very nicely drawn, and I liked the ones where Andrew is helping Mr. Wizard on stage, and when Karen meets Morbidda Destiny. She doesn't look nasty in the picture as she is sometimes described in the book. Overall, this was a fun book to read in the Little Sister series, and I would recommend it to any young readers who like to read about magic.