#magical book

Kelcie Murphy and the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts

by Erika Lewis

What if Slytherin had claimed Harry Potter? This is the world of Kelcie Murphy and the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts. What starts as a typically human tale of a museum field trip with a thick-skinned Bostonian foster child transmogrifies into a magical and possibly sinister trial-of-skill in the Celtic realm of fae and fury.

Kelcie Murphy remembers nothing of her childhood. Shuffled between foster homes in the bitter northeast, her only connection to her life before is the curious pendant strung around her neck.  When she is carted away by authorities during a school field trip, she discovers an artifact that is not on display - and for good reason. It’s possible that while wrestling with freezing fae and her understanding of reality in the bowels of the museum, she may have been tricked into incanting a spell that opens a kind of eye of Sauron situation and names her as an heir to a frightening, perhaps world-annihilating power.

Thus she is transported to the Otherworld. Which it turns out, is her true home. On the hunt for her parents, she discovers that she may actually have some powers of her own. But to stay in this world, she first has to get into the Academy of Unbreakable Arts.

With school dens, a whole new magical system and a world steeped in Celtic lore, this is the type of book we need right now: fun, transporting and fantastic.

Run, don’t walk, to get this delightful new magical middle grade debut which will appeal to YA fans and a crossover audience as well! I can’t wait for book 2!

The Crystal Ball (1902), by J.W. Waterhouse 

After the devout girl reading the missal, Waterhouse painted quite the opposite with this picture full of symbols of witchcraft: a wand, a skull and the woman looking into a crystal ball.  Against the young girl reading the holy book, stands here an experienced woman following instructions from a book full of magical symbols.  The skull was overpainted in the early 1950’s, but restored in its original state 40 years later.

Both paintings were displayed in the same gallery, side by side.  They clearly belong together and as such were both bought by Frederick H. Pyman in 1909. Later they became somehow separated.  This painting’s last known location is in a private collection in Mexico, whereas the location of The Missal is unknown.