When my young niece came to visit last month, I immediately ran to my bookshelf, perusing some browning pages I’ve kept since childhood. Stories that had fed my growing imagination that I longed to pass along to my niece. My excitement was quickly doused. Of the titles I picked, none were suitable for a young girl of eight years old. I’m afraid I am terribly out of touch with the milestones of childhood, having no kids of my own, nor plans to have any. Perhaps I needed to forget about the outdated stories I’ve loved and turn my attention to more modern titles.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a name that has recently come to my attention. While I missed out on her first two publications, Season of Ponies and The Velvet Room, I decided to give her most recent book, Black and Blue Magic, a chance. The clincher was that the main character is named Harry Houdini Marco.

As a child I gobbled up any sort of book about Harry Houdini. Magicians were the closest thing to actual magic and perhaps a small part of me believed if I mastered the art, I would become magical. However, my plans were foiled by my awkward co-ordination and fear of public speaking. The former, the main character and I have in common. Hence the title: “Black and Blue Magic.”

Harry Houdini Marco was named thus by his talented magician father, who hoped young Harry would grow up to be the greatest magician of all time. What added to his high expectations was a prediction that Harry would possess a most unique type of magic — something Harry’s dad interpreted as proof that his wish would come true.

Now that his father has passed, Harry lives with his mother in a boarding house she runs. He still feels pressure to measure up to his dad’s dreams for him, but Harry has given up on trying to learn magic. As summer starts, he laments over how boring it will be with his best friend moving to another neighborhood and his Mom’s plans to treat them to a vacation having been foiled by a tenant moving out. More than anything, Harry wants his mom to find love and remarry, so she won't have to work so hard. He also dreams of leaving San Francisco behind and living on a farm.

Harry’s luck changes when he encounters a strange and clumsy man. After the man accidentally leaves his suitcase behind, Harry carries the case back to him and offers him lodging at the boarding house.

Days later, Harry is surprised to find the man has accepted his invitation. After a few nights of spying on him, Harry discovers Mr. Mazeeck is more than just a salesman — he’s also a once powerful, now disgraced and cursed wizard who sells magical items. After all the help Harry has given Mr. Mazeeck, the wizard thanks him by giving Harry an item from his suitcase — a small potion that when applied to his back and the magic words are uttered, allows Harry to sprout wings.

With his newfound magic, Harry spends every night of summer flying around San Francisco. He has misadventures each night such as landing in the monkey exhibit at the zoo only to be chased away by the animals, being mistaken as an angel by a drunkard, and stepping in to stop the corner store from being robbed. Without meaning to, Harry impacts the lives around him for the better. After sighting Harry, the drunkard quits drinking, and a grouchy neighbor turns kind after thinking an angel has been landing on her roof.

But as summer nears its end, Harry has yet to figure out how to set his mom up with one of the kindly residents. And his potion is about to run out…

Harry as a character is extremely likeable. He is average and unremarkable, yet incredibly altruistic with his newfound magic. Harry never passes up the opportunity to help another out. Like ripples, his actions unintentionally bring good to those around him.

While an upstanding example of a kid, he does not come across as unrealistic. He chases what he finds fun and has a sense of humor, which he shares with both his mom and the man he wants her to marry. Scenes between the two, and later, the three of them are warm and charming. The story truly made me believe that Harry loves his mom and wants what’s best for her — his hope that she can marry and no longer have to work the boarding house surpasses his desire to leave the city.

This book has the excellent message that our actions, what we do for those around us, matter. There is just a touch of magic added to give the story wonder; the desire to fly is just as human a quality as loving and helping one another.

While speeding through the book in two days, I can imagine this will be a book to be read one chapter a night to children. Each chapter is a small adventure. Though they sometimes leave off on a cliffhanger, these are quickly resolved within the first lines of the next chapter, defusing the tension. For example, one chapter ends with Mr. Mazeeck telling Harry that next time he’ll be in the city, Harry will be dead. This raised many exciting questions in my mind. Is this a warning that disaster is coming for San Francisco? Does Harry have an enemy that will soon emerge? Then I turned the page to the next chapter, and Mr. Mazeeck explains that this is because he’ll next visit San Francisco in 200 years. Being that Mr. Mazeeck is a wizard with a longer lifespan, he’ll simply outlive Harry by the next time he’ll visit. It's a simple explanation that quickly ruins any sort of tension created in the chapter before.

I understand, to some extent, why it’s written this way. In-between the question being raised and the answer quickly given, my head swam with imagination. It transported me back to my childhood, when ending the night on a cliffhanger chapter would fill me with wonder as I churned over ideas in my mind of where the story would go next, only too eager for the next night to read more. Such things incite imagination, one of the purposes of reading as a child. I did find it to be a let down with this book when the actual answer was rather bland compared to my own assumptions.

Nevertheless, it’s the ending that brought the book together for me. It is as sweet and full of wonder as the rest of the book, and brings several plot points spread throughout to a close in a more than satisfying way. Black and Blue Magic left me feeling happy and spoke to the inner child. I think it will be a more than suitable read for my niece, as well as something that will hold the test of time.

4 out of 5 stars.