A Darker Magic

This impressive first novel is pure, scary excitement. For classmates Emily and Craig and their teacher, genteel Miss Potts, summer begins routinely enough: Emily tends her rambunctious brother, Craig decides to look up a friend, and Miss Potts closes down the classroom. On one of the desks she finds a mysterious old playbill. Soon, all three are beset by frightening premonitions. Something dangerous, something connected with the past is about to happen. As tension builds, the characters' separate stories come together, seemingly forced by the evil designs of a strange magician who appeared in the town some 50 years before. Together or alone, they must resist him. No deeply embedded meanings are uncovered by the end; this is simply a well-told story of horror. The characters are sharp, the plot is solid, and Bedard has a wonderful way of dropping vivid details, like clues, along the way. Ages 10-14. (September)