Saving the world sounds crazy daunting, especially for someone who's only 12 years old. But sometimes, we can't choose these things. The same way that we can't choose the world we're born into, our families (or lack of them), or even our friends. Destiny, or fate, or both, sets us on a path that can lead to happiness or destruction. And most of the time, we might not get a say in the matter. This is the kind of lesson our newest 12 year old magicians are learning in our newest magic school series, Magisterium. Co-authored by bestsellers Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, The Iron Trial is a thrilling new saga for anyone who hoped magic would continue to exist past the bounds of Harry Potter. Holly Black and Cassandra Clare first met over ten years ago at Holly's first-ever book signing. They have since become good friends, bonding over (among other things) their shared love of fantasy. With Magisterium, they decided to team up to write their own story about heroes and villains, good and evil, and being chosen for greatness, whether you like it or not. Holly is the bestselling author and co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles series and won a Newbery Honor for her novel Doll Bones. She recently finished The Folk of the Air series, and you can find my reviews of those here. Cassie is the author of bestselling YA series, including The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, The Dark Artifices, and The Last Hours. They both live in Western Massachusetts, about ten minutes away from each other. This is their first collaboration, and marks the start of a five-book series. If you're interested in more of my reviews of Holly Black's work, you can find them all here. If you're interested in more of my reviews of Cassandra Clare's work, you can find them all here.
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure that it can only mean bad things for him. So he tries his best to do his worst -- and fails at failing. Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .
When anyone thinks of "magic school" books, we often think of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter series. It was a slamming success, with millions of readers worldwide and a theme park dedicated to bringing the world to life. But, Harry Potter doesn't own the rights to magic, much in the same way that J.K. Rowling isn't the only bestselling author to exist. There's still room from "magic school" books, and Holly Black and Cassandra Clare took it upon themselves to add to this branch of the genre. Magisterium is different from Hogwarts, too, in many notable and exciting ways. If you try to analyze Magisterium and The Iron Trial in the face of Harry Potter, you won't get very far. Instead, looking at it as a separate entity, you can see that the book (and series) itself is pure magic. Black and Clare work incredibly hard to apply their joint skills in making this magic world lush, believable, and fascinating. By focusing on the natural elements (fire, water, air, earth, and chaos), the magic of Magisterium is earthly and natural. The hierarchy Black and Clare set up in The Iron Trial leads to inevitable problems in the later volumes, demonstrating the pains these women went through while building this magic world. Everything has a meaning, from the magic to the backgrounds of the kids, to the school itself, all of which makes for a captivating new middle grade series.
Callum Hunt is the main character, but he's not the sort of main character you'd expect. He's not a hero, but a trouble maker. Instead of wanting to learn magic, he wants to abhor it, like his father expects. He tries not to care when, in fact, he cares more than he'd like to admit. He's not very good at making friends, and when he finds them, he confesses that he doesn't really know what to do with them. Callum is a down-to-earth character, and the kind of kid you can't help but relate to. Even more importantly, Callum is permanently maimed from his experiences as a baby. This leaves him with a disability, in that he can't quite walk right because of his left leg. It's important to have disabled kids star in the middle grade fiction genre -- it gives visibility for the kids that need it. It's also important for kids to read the ways in which Call is successful and heroic in spite of his leg, and the ways he also uses it to his disadvantage. He never rolls over and "takes it" -- meaning, he doesn't let the other kids make fun of him. He stands up for himself, which is also another important lesson. There are layers of complexity here with the decision for Call's leg to be permanently injured, the kind of complexity that middle grade readers might not immediately pick up on, but the kind that will always pervade the reading experience.
Middle grade is different from YA in many different ways, but one of my favorite ways is in how readers don't need to get all the details. For example, I was wondering, why are the Masters only recruiting in North Carolina and Magisterium is in Virginia? Are there other magic schools across the world? How do the Masters know they're getting all the magical children into school so the world isn't at the mercy of the magic kids that were missed? We don't need these details, because these aren't the things important to our narrator, or even the plot. But, these questions are important nonetheless because they signal interest in the kind of world Black and Clare created. Hopefully, these answers will come, but for now, they're only important in that they exist. Readers don't even truly need a lot of stunning plot twists and turns (which Holly Black and Cassandra Clare are the queens of in YA fiction). Instead, readers need to be invested in the hero's character and the journey they think the hero will take. This is the one of the most important things readers need to be impressed by, because it makes them curious to know more about how Call's journey will continue, and whether or not they should actually continue with the series -- and my judgement is, is that they should!
It's hard to judge, exactly, how well Black and Clare collaborated. Unlike The Lady Janies, it's impossible to tell if the chapters bounce back and forth between the two authors. The style of the prose is seamless. It reads like only one author wrote it, when we know that can't be true. So we can assume, knowing that Black and Clare are best friends and fantastic writers, that this collaboration went extremely well for them. The book reads smoothly and without incident, which can also be attributed to their editors and team. This is definitely a pro for the Magisterium series -- a book with two great authors behind it, reading in a way that's easy-to-follow and fun.
And Callum's journey definitely just got fun, if not more complicated. Callum received the scariest news possible, which could change his path and his friendships forever. The story continues in book 2, The Copper Gauntlet, and you won't want to miss it. Check out my review here!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure that it can only mean bad things for him. So he tries his best to do his worst -- and fails at failing. Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .
When anyone thinks of "magic school" books, we often think of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter series. It was a slamming success, with millions of readers worldwide and a theme park dedicated to bringing the world to life. But, Harry Potter doesn't own the rights to magic, much in the same way that J.K. Rowling isn't the only bestselling author to exist. There's still room from "magic school" books, and Holly Black and Cassandra Clare took it upon themselves to add to this branch of the genre. Magisterium is different from Hogwarts, too, in many notable and exciting ways. If you try to analyze Magisterium and The Iron Trial in the face of Harry Potter, you won't get very far. Instead, looking at it as a separate entity, you can see that the book (and series) itself is pure magic. Black and Clare work incredibly hard to apply their joint skills in making this magic world lush, believable, and fascinating. By focusing on the natural elements (fire, water, air, earth, and chaos), the magic of Magisterium is earthly and natural. The hierarchy Black and Clare set up in The Iron Trial leads to inevitable problems in the later volumes, demonstrating the pains these women went through while building this magic world. Everything has a meaning, from the magic to the backgrounds of the kids, to the school itself, all of which makes for a captivating new middle grade series.
Callum Hunt is the main character, but he's not the sort of main character you'd expect. He's not a hero, but a trouble maker. Instead of wanting to learn magic, he wants to abhor it, like his father expects. He tries not to care when, in fact, he cares more than he'd like to admit. He's not very good at making friends, and when he finds them, he confesses that he doesn't really know what to do with them. Callum is a down-to-earth character, and the kind of kid you can't help but relate to. Even more importantly, Callum is permanently maimed from his experiences as a baby. This leaves him with a disability, in that he can't quite walk right because of his left leg. It's important to have disabled kids star in the middle grade fiction genre -- it gives visibility for the kids that need it. It's also important for kids to read the ways in which Call is successful and heroic in spite of his leg, and the ways he also uses it to his disadvantage. He never rolls over and "takes it" -- meaning, he doesn't let the other kids make fun of him. He stands up for himself, which is also another important lesson. There are layers of complexity here with the decision for Call's leg to be permanently injured, the kind of complexity that middle grade readers might not immediately pick up on, but the kind that will always pervade the reading experience.
Middle grade is different from YA in many different ways, but one of my favorite ways is in how readers don't need to get all the details. For example, I was wondering, why are the Masters only recruiting in North Carolina and Magisterium is in Virginia? Are there other magic schools across the world? How do the Masters know they're getting all the magical children into school so the world isn't at the mercy of the magic kids that were missed? We don't need these details, because these aren't the things important to our narrator, or even the plot. But, these questions are important nonetheless because they signal interest in the kind of world Black and Clare created. Hopefully, these answers will come, but for now, they're only important in that they exist. Readers don't even truly need a lot of stunning plot twists and turns (which Holly Black and Cassandra Clare are the queens of in YA fiction). Instead, readers need to be invested in the hero's character and the journey they think the hero will take. This is the one of the most important things readers need to be impressed by, because it makes them curious to know more about how Call's journey will continue, and whether or not they should actually continue with the series -- and my judgement is, is that they should!
It's hard to judge, exactly, how well Black and Clare collaborated. Unlike The Lady Janies, it's impossible to tell if the chapters bounce back and forth between the two authors. The style of the prose is seamless. It reads like only one author wrote it, when we know that can't be true. So we can assume, knowing that Black and Clare are best friends and fantastic writers, that this collaboration went extremely well for them. The book reads smoothly and without incident, which can also be attributed to their editors and team. This is definitely a pro for the Magisterium series -- a book with two great authors behind it, reading in a way that's easy-to-follow and fun.
And Callum's journey definitely just got fun, if not more complicated. Callum received the scariest news possible, which could change his path and his friendships forever. The story continues in book 2, The Copper Gauntlet, and you won't want to miss it. Check out my review here!
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