The Magic Half
Written by Annie Barrows
Narrated by Cris Dukehart
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Annie Barrows
Annie Barrows is a middle-aged lady who doesn’t talk very much, which is why none of the kids who hang out in her house noticed that she was writing down everything they said. She’s like a ninja, except she’s never killed anyone. Okay, okay, she’s also the author of the Ivy + Bean books—remember them? They were fun!—and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. All of which were New York Times bestsellers, if you care about that kind of thing. www.anniebarrows.com
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Magic in the Mix Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Magic Half Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
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Reviews for The Magic Half
107 ratings16 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In THE MAGIC HALF by Annie Barrows, a twelve year old girl named Miri is disenchanted with being the only non-twin among her siblings.Time travel, along with a series of adventures, helps Miri discover a new confidant. Molly comes from a different upbringing. Molly's friendship causes Miri to develop self-confidence, bravery, and curiosity.There is also a wonderful element of magic in the story. The magic leads Molly to ask some profound questions about her childhood, and place in the world!I would certainly recommend this book to a sensitive middle-grade audience. Barrows has a remarkable affinity for conveying very sophisticated themes for an 8-12 y/o audience.-Breton W Kaiser-Shinn
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reread for the Children's Books group discussion.
I agree with those who have said it nicely fills a niche for the younger readers. I'd still be careful about sharing it with sensitive children - Horst was truly scary, because he's all too realistic and not leavened with any ridiculousness or vulnerability.
I have to say, the ending was just exactly what it was supposed to be. The *point* of the book was to do what Grandma May knew they would do, and set things right, make things turn out just this way. Sure, I can see wanting a different ending, but that would be a different book.
I really liked all the little details that made the characters come alive. Her knuckle hurt from all the chewing it had had lately. Miri took an experimental bite of her thumbnail. Not so good, but better than nothing."
And about the twin thing - I bet Miri's siblings didn't always feel grateful for being special. Sometimes 'those girls' would want to be each themselves, and to always have new neighbors and teachers fixating on your unique family must be draining. It's going to be interesting for Miri now that she's going to be able to see what her siblings have been going through since birth.
I'm not much for rereading, but this was worth it." - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Miri feels like the odd-girl-out in her family since she is the middle child between two sets of twins. Robbie and Ray are 13; Nell and Nora are four. Miri is always in a dreamworld pretending magic is guiding her existence. The whole family just moved to an old, delapidated farm house out in the country. Miri wanders the gardens and the outbuildings looking for treasures, pretending she see silvery wings, and hoping for a magical friend. One day, she happens to see a eyeglass piece taped to wall board...when she looks through it, she is transported back through time to 1935. There she meets Molly, an orphan who is being raisied by a cruel aunt and her children. Molly fears for her life and pleads with Miri to take her back to her world. Somehow they find a way to travel back and forth between the two periods of time and arrive back in Miri's house at the same time and in the same year. What is awaiting them is the surprise of their lives. All of Miri's magical daydreams just might be reality.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Time travel from 1935. Interesting that the 75 years provides a character still alive. Otherwise I like Ivy and Bean better.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Eleven-year-old Miriam Gill - Miri for short - is continually the odd one out in her family, excluded by both her twin elder brothers, Robbie and Ray, and by her twin younger sisters, Nell and Nora. When the family move into a rambling old house on Pickering Lane, Miri has no idea that a magical adventure will soon bring her something she has always wanted: a close companion and twin sister of her own. Banished to her room shortly after a disastrous fight with Ray, Miri discovers an odd piece of glass taped to the wall, and gazing through it, is drawn back in time to 1935, where she meets a young girl named Molly, living in the same house on Pickering Lane. Soon discovering that Molly is both unhappy - her adoptive aunt and cousins are often unkind to her, treating her like a poor relation - and in danger from her brutish cousin Horst, who is a thief and bully (and potentially worse), Miri is determined to help. When she finds herself unexpectedly in the present once more, she is desperately afraid of what might be happening (or might have already happened) to Molly back in the past. Can Miri find her way back to 1935? And if she does, will she be able to save Molly...?Chosen as our February selection in The Children's Fiction Book Club to which I belong, The Magic Half is an entertaining time-slip fantasy for middle-grader readers, featuring two appealing but believable young heroines, and an engrossing story that will keep readers involved until the very end. Although it took me a few chapters to become really invested in it, by the latter half of the book I was racing for the end, determined to see how it would all work out. Horst makes for an atypically realistic villain - he is really a very creepy character for a book aimed at this age level, I think - and Molly is just different enough from Miri, in terms of vocabulary and knowledge, that the reader can believe she is from 1935. The time-travel itself is never really explained - save that it was meant to be, because (according to Molly's fairy-like Grandma May) "magic is a way of setting things right" - but the mechanics of the travel, how seeing through each girl's set of glasses takes you into her time, is interesting. I appreciated the scene in which Miri really begins to think about the nature of time, and how different choices could lead events in so many different directions. Although Barrows never uses the term, Miri is clearly struggling towards an understanding of the concept of a multiverse.All in all, The Magic Half is an engaging time-slip tale, one I would recommend to middle-grade readers with a taste for such stories, as well as to children who feel a little left out in their families, or who long for something magical to happen to them.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Barrows, AnnieThe Magic Half2009. 224pp. $6.99 pbk. Bloomsbury. 978-1-5999-0358-3. Grades 5-8Miri feels left out because she is the only single child in a family full of twins. Even when she tries to explore the farmhouse where her family moved, her brothers and sisters get in the way. But one day, Miri finds a lens from a pair of glasses taped to the wall of her room, and when she looks through it, she is transported back in time to 1935, where a girl named Molly just Miri's age lives with her mystical grandmother and her cruel aunt and cousin. Miri becomes determined to rescue Molly and bring her back to Miri's own time, but the rules of time travel are stranger than even Miri can guess. Miri is an engaging, determined character who believes thoroughly in magic and is proven right within the course of her story. Middle children or children who sometimes feel left out of sibling relationships might particularly enjoy this story. Recommended for older children who like magical realism.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Miri is a middle child. Not only that, but she is the only one of her siblings that is not a twin. Through the help of magical glasses, she is able to go back in time to 1935 and meets a girl named Molly, who may turn out to be her long-lost twin! Delightful time-travel story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who needs a fancy time machine when you have a pair of glasses...magic glasses of course. Miri Gill discovers a lens from a pair of glasses when her family moves into an old house. Looking through the lens magically transports her to the same house in 1935 where she meets a girl named Molly. Molly's father left her with her mean relatives six years ago. In Cinderella-like fashion, Miri makes it her mission to recuse Molly from this cruel life and bring her to the twenty-first century. The obstacles: Molly's cruel cousin Horst, finding a lens that will take them home, and of course trying not to alter the future timeline. A great mix of magic, time travel, and mystery. Anyone who's ever felt left out or wished for a twin will enjoy Miri's tale. The mystery of the story and Miri's brave quest to save Molly keep the excitement going until the surprise ending. Great book!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the story of a lonely little girl stuck in the middle of two sets fo twins. She moves into a new house and finds a lens from an old pair of glasses. When she looks through it she is transported back to 1935 where she meets a little girl in trouble, living in the same house, just years before. The two girls figure out how the glasses work and in the end they both both come back to the future and by doing this they changed history and the two girls end up being twins sisters.It was a fun story about magic and time travel, I think that it would be fun to talk about how much things have changed since 1935, what 1935 was like, what you would change if you had the chance, as well as just being a good book for fun and using your imagination.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A good offering for the 5th/6th grade reader. Time travel, mystery, magic and a bully getting what he deserves are all appeal factors in this offering by the writer of Ivy & Bean (and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miri lives in a family of 2 older twin brothers and 2 younger twin sisters. After moving into an old house, she finds an eyeglass lens in her attic room that sends her back to the same house in 1935. There she finds Molly, a girl in a Cinderella-type situation, who needs help. Good time-traveling fun and teaching some bad guys a lesson. Nice characters and friendship. For girls who want to belive in magic!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A fun story that uses a mix of magic and time travel.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just finished it last night and loved it.Very very very good.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved it! The whole family couldn’t stop listening to this audiobook. Wish there were more.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Much better than expected. A talented writer (who co-wrote The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) tells a story about an 11-year old girl. It's fun, has some fantasy, but is well grounded in the reality of the world of pre-teens and their families. I'm 60 years old, and sometimes kids books are worth reading at any age. This one is.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved this book!!! This will be perfect for those imaginative 2nd and 3rd graders who can read just about everything and who still believe in magic, just a little bit.
Barrows does a nice job of exploring the consequences of time travel in an accessible way. It's complicated but the infinite looping of "if I didn't do that then, then I couldn't do this now" will fascinate kids. The magical resolution is harder to believe than the rest of the book, but I didn't care. The 7 year old in me was just too happy that it all worked out okay.