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The Magician’s Boy
By Susan Cooper
Illustrated by Serena Riglietti
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2005. 101 pages
In this charming story about the power of story, Susan Cooper takes readers to the Land of Story itself in the company of the Magician’s Boy of the title. The Boy yearns to be more than assistant to the Magician he serves. He wants to learn the magic arts, but is rebuffed by the Magician’s statement, “Not till the time is right.”
The Boy also serves as puppeteer, pulling the strings of the cast of “Saint George and the Dragon” while the Magician narrates. One day, the puppet of Saint George turns up missing and is unavailable to answer his cue. The Magician sends the Boy to the Land of Story to find Saint George so that the show can go on.
The Boy is accompanied in the Land of Story by a talking signpost that points in two directions at once and offers the clue, “Only a child can find the way / To bring Saint George back to the play.” In short order the Boy encounters the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf who pursues her, Jack, the Beanstalk, the Giant, and Pinocchio. With the help of all these characters, whose traditional plot lines intersect with unexpected results, the Boy locates Saint George and returns to the puppet show triumphant.
In The Magician’s Boy we witness the transforming power of story. By entering into, and working through, his story, the Boy demonstrates that real change is possible only when we go so far as to take the necessary risks and enter fully our stories. Cooper offers readers a light but significant catharsis that invites us to welcome the adventures that are our lives and to face our dragons on our terms, not theirs.
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