Magic by the Lake | Edward Eager
Siobhan's Book Rating (out of 5): 
 February 2007 – Today I will be sharing with you my book “Magic By The Lake” by Edward Eager. Picture this! How would it be to discover a cave that is decorated with an island and palm trees in its middle? For these particular children, the adventures begin when they find an interesting sign.
What do you think the sign says? Magic By The Lake, the name of the book! The children make wishes here and magic is born. Some of the magic is good but some of it is scary and bad. One wish they can end up swimming with mermaids and talking to turtles, but the next, they can be taken hostage by the islanders! When everyone – good and bad – falls asleep, what will happen? will someone save them? or, who will save them?
The four characters I want to tell you about are Mark, Katherine, Jane, and Martha. First let me tell you a little bit about Mark. Mark, the oldest and the only boy, mostly enjoys to trap animals and capture bugs. He often rescues his younger sisters from the consequence of their mischief – he is their leader.
Katherine is the oldest of the three girls but she is younger than Mark. She is very smart and talks a lot. In fact, when the time for the wish to use the turtle’s home was up, she negotiated for more time. She loves to explore, especially their newfound magic. Katherine is my favourite character.
Jane. When Jane wishes with Katherine to be grown up, their memories are taken away and they cannot even remember who their other siblings are. Luckily, Mark wished them back to normal! I will read to you this part a little later. Jane, like Katherine, loves to explore. She loves animals dearly and does not like it when Mark captures them. She scolds him with, “Don’t do that. It’s not nice. You wouldn’t like it if someone did it to you.”
Martha. It was during an afternoon swim when Martha discovered the sign that read “Magic By The Lake”. Although it was her find, Jane was the first to make a wish, the wish that the lake was truly magic. Martha is the youngest and often bossed around – for that, she rebels and breaks the rules!
"I wish we were sixteen right now, don't you?" said Katherine, trailing one foot in the water.
"Yes," said Jane, trailing one of hers, "I do."
Immediately they were.
Mark felt the change coming just before it happened, and started to cry out, but what could he say? All he could do was watch, horrified, as his sisters' figures lengthened in the middle and their scratched legs grew slim and elegant, and their faces changed from tan and freckled to pink-and-white and powdered and uppity.
"I don't like it! Tell it to stop!" cried Martha.
I really like this book because the cover had a mermaid on it, and some of you know that I am crazy about mermaids! One of the themes I enjoy to read about most is magic and adventure and this book is full of all that. Really, I couldn’t wait to finish it and if you are like me, you will probably enjoy reading this story too. There were way many things that happend that I didn’t expect at all! It was great to read it and I liked it very much.
When the kids had to say good-bye to the magic, it was disappointing to them – and me too! It was fun while it lasted but now they can go to sleep and not find themselves captured by pirates! And me too! The End.
Book Review by Siobhan, age 8
Originally presented in February 2007 at the CVPS Institution
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