Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
School of Wizardry
Debra Doyle · 1990
65/100
👎 Skip It
Randal's journey from squire to wizard apprentice is an earnest, morally grounded middle-grade fantasy with the genuinely clever touch that lying corrupts a wizard's spells — that's good ethical storytelling baked into the magic system. The problem is that the series has been largely out of print for decades and modern middle-grade fantasy has raised the bar considerably. Worth hunting down for a nostalgic reader, but hard to recommend as a first-choice pick when availability is uncertain.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: fantasy magic and wizardry as central premise — conservative faith families may have concerns. We still scored it 65; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety60
substance62
craft63
originality60
accuracy70
hype58
age-fit75
human-eye62
Penny’s verdict65
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