Jaden Powers and the Inheritance Magic

Gr 3-7–Twelve-year-old Jaden Powers is dreading the end of the summer vacation when his best friend Elijah will depart for boarding school, leaving him behind with his overprotective parents, lonely days in junior high, and a pesky little brother. Jaden is looking forward to spending Elijah’s first weekend home from school hanging out, when an unexpected tragedy takes Elijah away from Jaden and everyone else who loved him. When Jaden cries over a mysterious notebook that he finds at Elijah’s memorial service, it suddenly reveals a secret world of magic. Jaden soon learns that Elijah hasn’t been going to a fancy private school, and that he is actually a very powerful magician attending a school of sorcery in a hidden realm called Wonder. Jaden’s grief at the loss of Elijah seems to have awakened magic within him, too, and he travels to Wonder to become a student of sorcery and save his best friend along with the rest of the world. This middle grade fantasy contains tropes reminiscent of classic wizard school stories like Harry Potter. Nevertheless, in creating a hero of a seemingly typical African American preteen boy and portraying the values of friendship, perseverance, self-confidence, compassion, and imagination, this novel does cover new ground in what is familiar literary terrain.