Double-Yuck Magic

Kathleen Duey's debut novel sets up an appealing premise: a girl who cannot have a dog in her new apartment discovers a Mad Inventor's Handbook and uses it to solve her problems with comedic and magical results. The humor-first approach and light magic are exactly what middle-grade readers who enjoy silly adventure tend to reach for, and Duey went on to build a solid career in children's fiction — so there is craft behind this early effort. The practical problem is that the book is out of print and hard to locate, and available information about the actual plot and execution is thin enough that a detailed recommendation is difficult to make responsibly. If you stumble across it at a library sale, it is likely a pleasant, harmless read for an eight-to-ten-year-old. Most readers will not find it worth the hunt.