Piers Torday writes books that open doors for you, the magical, mystical kind. Once again in The Lost Magician, he's weaved an enchanting tale that will dazzle readers for many years to come.

Unfortunately I no longer wish to review this book as the first few chapters did not reel me in. Thank you for the opportunity.

I've had this book on my shelves for so long and I'm kicking myself for not reading it sooner! It's a magical adventure story, taking you to new worlds but introducing you to familiar characters along the way.

With a real nod to 'The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe', four siblings go to an old house in the countryside after the end of WWII and end up discovering a magical world through a mysterious library. The younger children go first and of course, their older siblings do not believe them, but when they find themselves in danger, they end up all going through together. Mirroring the real world, there is a war going on in this magical world and the children find themselves wrapped up in trying to find peace.

I loved the structure of the book, with national security archives documents interspersed between the chapters and a constant building of the drama and danger. All of the characters were really well created and the worlds were incredibly believable. This is a fantastic story, with a real sense of nostalgia for older readers - having loved The Faraway Tree and the Narnia Chronicles as a child, this felt like a very new take on a similar story.

There is a place where stories go once they are read, The Land of the Reads. But there is also the land of the Unreads, a place of pure data and facts, and unfortunately neither sees the other as equal. This book had elements of Narnia and Lord of the Rings.
I found it very difficult to suspend disbelief and immerse myself in the story. The magic and wonder that should have come through in a land of stories just didn't materialise. I also found most of the children so bratty that I couldn't sympathise with them. Overall it was a fairly enjoyable story to pass the time but felt quite contrived.

When I saw this book pop up on NetGalley, I was intrigued, because I enjoy a good MG portal fantasy. I figured that the Narnia comparisons were probably just there in the same way that any book with siblings discovering magic is compared to Narnia – but to my surprise, The Lost Magician is actually a pretty straightforward retelling of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and I was ultimately pretty baffled as to why it was written.

Okay. Here’s the plot. Siblings Patricia, Simon, Evelyn and Larry are evacuated just after WW2, to a big ol mansion in the countryside, owned by a mysterious but jovial professor. They (Larry first, then Evelyn, then all four of them) discover a mysterious door in a disused room that leads to a magical world where all fairy tale characters are real. The fictional characters are being oppressed by the tall silver queen of nonfiction, who believes only in facts and wants to end magic. Larry finds the fantasy side first and has tea with Tom Thumb. Evelyn finds the fact side first and swears allegiance to the queen.

All four kids enter the fantasy world and discover the war. They hang out with the three bears, who tell them that they are Readers, fated to help bring back The Librarian, who will defeat the evil fact queen. Evelyn sneaks back to the queen. The others go off through the woods to find The Librarian, and they meet the Green Man, who gives them each a thematic present…

Um… Is this sounding familiar to anyone else?

The first three quarters of this book are a straight retelling of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The parallels are so strong that I could not enjoy the story for what it was, at all. The story of Narnia is a cultural touchstone for so many; it’s practically in the national consciousness, so it’s not like people wouldn’t recognise the bones of the story. I cannot believe the dozens of reviews for this saying it’s a nice ‘nod’ to CS Lewis, when the story follows the original so closely. This has gone way, way beyond ‘an homage to’, ‘an ode to’, ‘inspired by’, or any of the other marketing phrases used to blurb it – it’s almost plagiaristic. It’s like when a kid copies a test and thinks if they just change a few words to synonyms, no one will notice that they’ve copied the whole thing. I could draw you up a chart of all the parallels.

There are two main differences in this book: one, there’s a huge focus on reading being the Best Thing Ever, and two, the horrors of war are much more present and spelled out. To deal with the latter first: I don’t even know how many times we were told that Evelyn had seen some dead bodies from a bombing. I’m sure this was extremely traumatising, but also, these kids lived in London throughout the entirety of WW2 – I’m fairly certain they all saw some pretty terrible stuff. The very fact that this one incident is referred to so often took all the power out of it, for me, as it made it predictable rather than shocking.

The focus on the power of reading also rubbed me up the wrong way. I mentioned in my review of Pages and Co that some books about readers can feel rather pretentious and worthy, and this is definitely one of them. The main villain of the book is the King of people who never read. Seriously. People who don’t read are portrayed as demonic, ignorant and cruel – oh, this is despite Simon, one of the main characters, being dyslexic and stating on page several times that he isn’t a fan of reading for pleasure. Then, all of a sudden, Simon has the revelation that reading is brilliant and he should just persevere… I found this, quite frankly, a little offensive. I’m a huge reader and have been since childhood, but I don’t think that I’m better than other people because of that. I don’t watch a lot of films or TV, because I prefer my stories in book form, so why isn’t the other way around just as valid? Simon likes to listen to the wireless, and listen to bedtime stories, and clearly finds fiction and imagination fun – I hated that he was portrayed as lesser because he doesn’t find the act of physically reading to be fun. To be clear, I think that Torday was trying to be inclusive by having a dyslexic kid in a book about books, but for me, it came off as almost the opposite. I’m actually reminded of the ongoing debate amongst the book community as to whether audiobooks count as ‘reading’ (spoiler, they do, and you’re wrong if you think they don’t).

The other thing that just didn’t click for me was the fact that the main conflict in the magical world was between fiction and non-fiction. Both are perfectly valid things to read! Many kids (especially, again, those who think they don’t like to read or struggle with reading) are much more likely to enjoy a factual book than one about rainbow unicorns (which, yes, feature here on the ‘good’ side). I love a non-fiction book. I remember reading the Horrible Histories books to death as a kid, just as much as my Diana Wynne Jones! To paint non-fiction as ‘bad’ is again, reductive and a tad offensive to readers.

I just… don’t really see the point of this book, to be honest. If you want a story about the impact of war on children, this is way too shallow to be meaningful. If you want a story about the glory of reading, check out Pages and Co. If you want to read Narnia? Just go read Narnia. I’m afraid that you can’t call something an homage if you’ve just straight-up copied it. Don’t get me wrong, the writing is fine, it’s nicely paced, the adventure is exciting and the kids’ personalities are nicely varied. But it’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It’s not a new book.

I loved this book so much. It gave me that wonderful warm squidgy feeling that you get when you just can't wait to read what happens next, along with that anxious feeling that it's just not going to continue throughout the book.

Never fear! The author, Piers Torday, tells us at the beginning of the book that he recalled adoring The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (who didn't), and after the "retreating from the chaos of Brexit and Trump", he decided to revisit this work, producing this story in part a homage to this story.

I had an inkling then that I would love this book. Our children in this instance are Simon, Patricia, Evelyn and Larry, who, once again are sent away into the country due to their house being bombed, going up those stairs, and finding a magical door which leads to a library.

This is a wonderful retelling of CS Lewis's story, it's close enough to know what we are reading is a homage, but different enough to enjoy it in it's own right.

As I say, I loved this book, it made me feel all wonderful, as I did with CS Lewis's stories. A wonderful read on a cold day!

My thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Children's books for this copy

From the opening pages the links with Narnia were evident, but as the story progressed it took on a life of its own.
The Hastings children are sent to the countryside to protect them from the after-effects of war. Youngest child, Larry, finds a mysterious library at the top of the house. He tells them all, but then it can’t be found. Another child discovers it and is met by someone with ulterior motives. Eventually all find their way to the library and they get caught up in a timeless battle.
Modernised somewhat, our battle is focused on knowledge and the role of reading in our lives. It sets up fiction and non-fiction...but it’s soon clear that no interest in reading is the big enemy.
Younger readers may need some terms explaining - ‘pansy’ for instance - but this is exciting with a touch of magic to capture your interest. Still curious as to the role of the magician and professor, but it suggests more is to come.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication in exchange for my review.

Four children who have survived the blitz enter another world through the door of a mysterious library. A tale of good and evil paying homage to the Narnia books by C.S Lewis.
They embark on an adventure into a strange world of magical creatures where dark and sinister forces are at work. Good versus evil and they definitely need help from the Lost Magician of the title.
Reading this book is like stepping back into childhood invoking memories of all those books you read as a child which encouraged you to read more and more. Excellent children’s book

This is a very clever reworking of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, using a similar plot but updating the meaning from a Christian allegory to a much more modern take on stories, truth and the danger of ignorance. Torday does an excellent job of capturing the feel of Narnia, while also making it his own. The children have survived WW2 and are suffering from the horrors and strain of the times, and although they remain children of their time, they are also still relevant to ours. It is very cleverly done.

However, I struggled to connect with it. It’s been a long time since I last read any Narnia books and, I’ll admit, they were never my favourites – I enjoyed them, but found them largely forgettable, despite reading them many times. So that might have been why. Or perhaps it was the characters themselves, who are trying to be so many things at once – both period and modern, human and heroes, children and war survivors – while also being shoehorned into the Narnia narrative, that they felt a little flat to me. The part where Patricia didn’t turn around to look for Larry really didn’t work for me. It didn’t suit the character she seemed to be, but it was more important to the plot that she went forwards so that’s what she did. Which is a shame because I loved the extra flashes of personality we got from the children – Larry’s determination to be the best and brightest pansy near broke my heart, as did Evie’s struggles and Simon’s battle against dyslexia, but these extra insights couldn’t overcome the drive of the plot.

I liked it more when it turned away from Narnia. The other fairy-tale characters were interesting and intriguing (what really happened to Goldilocks?), and everything with the Never Reads was suitably horrifying. I liked the addition of the Green Man too, although I wasn’t overly fond of Roderick the Rainbow Unicorn because I found him pretty annoying, except for his love of maths. I loved how Larry dealt with him, though.

This is a book that revels in reading and readers, imagination and knowledge, and that is a wonderful thing. I’m just sad I didn’t like it more, but then I prefer my books more character-driven than plot-driven. However, if you – or some young readers you know – love classic children’s stories, chances are they (or you) will love this. It’s clever, it’s epic and it’s easy to read, and it definitely seems like there will be more to come for those who wish for it.

In terms of critical acclaim, Piers Torday certainly has clout. His first novel for children was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Award and nominated for the Carnegie Medal, while its sequel won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Not content with merely interrogating one of the most beloved children's books of all time, Torday also takes the opportunity here to explore themes of war, knowledge and the power of the written word.

In a novel that draws regularly on C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, there are of course nods to Narnia everywhere. Four children go to an old house, the home to a professor, to escape the effects of the Second World War. The youngest child stumbles into a magical world, which seems a bit choosy about when it can be accessed, and is not believed by their older siblings. Smaller allusions are scattered throughout the book. Larry, Evelyn, Patricia and Simon even share the same initials as the Pevensie siblings.

But it is not a retelling. Rather than a landscape of perpetual winter full of talking animals and Turkish delight, the reader is greeted with a subversive and surprising note which casts a niggle of doubt over the entirety of the magical proceedings which follow. The world of Folio is a sprawl of larger-than-life fairytale figures (rather ironically in the case of Tom Thumb) and vaudeville villains. Torday's bold, brash approach draws on a wild variety of characters and styles, allowing the Three Bears to appear in the same chapter as a War of the Worlds-esque amassing of the forces known as Unreads. This conflict between sides known as Reads (who represent a rich tradition of human storytelling), Unreads (robots who prefer the concrete and abhor imagination) and Never Reads (the most dreaded of all) is topical but about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

I liked The Lost Magician most when it was rooting itself in historical fiction. For all its outlandish technicolour, the prose is perhaps at its best when at its simplest and most grounded: "It was a kind of manor house, of which there were many in that part of the world, and to the children it just looked very old and very smart. The stone was honey coloured, blazing in the afternoon sun, and there were roses clambering up the side..."

A full version of this review will appear on my blog on publication day.

A journey into another world for young readers to explore and dream in. Piers Torday is an outstanding writer and this is another wonderful example of his work.

There are some great books set around the right time of WWII and pitched well for young readers so it takes something exceptional to join that canon of work. The Lost Magician is deserving of a place in every upper key stage 2 classroom. If you're children are learning about the post world war era or have covered WWII in any detail then this is a wonderful follow up to that topic.

The comparisons to C S Lewis are inevitable with some of the fantasy and magic on display here and this can only be a good thing.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

This is a fairy tale and its heavily influenced by the Narnia Chronicles. So much so that I found myself at times wondering why I was reading this when I could be back in Narnia.

Evacuee Larry (with his companion Grey Bear), find a door to a magical land where he meets Tom Thumb (riding a butterfly Majestic). Tom Thumb begs Larry, to help in a fight between good and evil.

What emerges is a modern-day Narnia. There are robots and flying airships. They meet characters on the way, especially Roderick the Rainbow Unicorn. This is wonderfully told, taking you right into the world of Folio and the terrors of ‘not reading’, or even worse being someone who has ‘never read’.

It is a young adults novel, but there are lots of references to keep adults interested and it will make a great film or TV series.

‘Rule 1: If you can imagine it, it must exist. Somewhere.’

Piers Torday’s The Last Magician takes its inspiration from the Chronicles of Narnia and there are indeed similarities; a group of siblings who discover the entrance to a strange, new land; a conflict is brewing between the inhabitants of this new land; the children are seemingly pivotal to ending the conflict.

The story is set a couple of months before the end of the Second World War, in July 1945, and tells of the evacuation of Larry, Patricia, Evie and Simon Hastings from London to Barfield Hall, near Salisbury, where they discover a mysterious library that acts as an entrance to the land of Folio.

Folio is home to the Reads (characters/locations from every story ever read), Unreads (every fact or piece of information yet to be discovered) and Never Reads (filled with what happens when people never read).

War is brewing between the Reads and Unreads, and the children are divided in their allegiances...‘...down there a battle is still going on. A war without end. A fight for supremacy between information and stories. Each side believes that only they can command the truth. Yet the truth is, well . . . And if one side doesn’t declare victory soon, trust me, there are far darker, more terrifying forces who will.’

Torday skilfully weaves the effect of the children’s experiences of war into each of their story arcs: each has been profoundly yet differently affected by the events they have witnessed. On contemplating the contrast between the beauty of his countryside surroundings at Barfield Hall and the devastation wreaked on his home city, Simon, the eldest of the Hastings children, thinks to himself that ‘War was a smoking monster, which steamrolled over everything, crushing the world you knew. Even when it was over, and you thought you had survived, you felt a pain in your chest, and there was the monster incubating inside, slowly crushing you in its claws, and wringing out every hope and dream you ever had.’ Each of the children must grapple with their own pain in order to help to resolve the conflict in Folio.

Ultimately this is a story about the power of imagination and curiosity, about the devastation of war and the endurance of the human spirit.

Magical story that whizzed me back to my childhood and the excitement I got from reading stories like this. My child is too young to read this at present but I will be keeping on her bookshelf!
Reminded me of the lion, witch and the wardrobe

Having survived the Blitz, Simon, Patricia, Evelyn and Larry are sent to the Barfield Hall while their parents find them a new home in London. The mysterious Professor Kelly is working on a top secret project to end human conflict once and for all, which leaves the children plenty of time and freedom to explore. They soon discover another world on the brink of war. It’s up to the children to draw on their experiences and choose which side they are on before the battle begins. But is there a way to prevent the two sides from destroying each other?

An absolute delight! To take a classic and reimagine it for modern readers is a fearsome task that Piers Torday has excelled in, creating a magical fantasy all of his own. Celebrating the power of reading, this is a story that sang to my soul, whisking me back under a blanket and reading by the light of the calor gas heater in my childhood home.

I was captivated from beginning to end, and revelled in the world of Folio. From the characters, who show the different ways war affects people, to the glorious settings within Folio and the abundance of characters from well loved books, there is much to capture the reader’s imagination and, with subtle messages about the power of imagination as a way to heal, much to think about too. Roderick will live in my heart forever!

The Lost Magician is up there with my favourite books ever, and one that is surely set to become a classic. I cannot wait to get this into the hands of readers at school, young and old, because within the pages there is proof (if ever it was needed) that reading can change the world!

Great for fans of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, The Neverending Story, The Land Of Stories and Wed Wabbit.

I am a huge fan of Piers Torday's books, and this, surely, will be his most successful and most loved one.

Four siblings get drawn into a magical book-land, where non-fictional characters fight well-known fictional ones.
Having lived through the Blitz, the children fight with their memories and experiences and have to make up their minds and choose sides, fight for their beliefs and, also, have to acknowledge failure.
The characters are multi-dimensional, each one different and difficult, but all of them understandable and deeply human.
It is a book about struggle, the struggle to read, the struggle of different world views and opinions and the struggle of family.
Ultimately it is a magical book, telling about the world and its ways with fairytale characters and leaving the reader full of ideas and adventure.

Absolutely loved reading this book although saying that I did feel like the plot resembles the lion, the witch and the wardrobe a bit too much. Loved that it was based on book characters that are alive in a make believe world of folio and that reads and unreads don’t like each other. I wasn’t disappointed with this at all and will be recommending it to everyone

A book about the importance of fairy tales and believing in yourself. A modern day Narnia appears when 4 children arrive at a strange rambling house immediately after WW11.
The four children discover the world of Folio which is under threat if people don't believe in the power of stories.
'If you can imagine it, it exists ... somewhere.' is the mantra told to Larry by a fairy knight on first entering the magical land. All children need to remember this to fight the fight that saves the Folio world and tries to save the mysterious library in the attic.
Yes, it's fantasy, but we all need a bit/lot of fantasy in our lives. What is important is not facts, but our imaginations to save the world. The children in various stages come round to accepting this, and in true Narnia fashion, it's the youngest who appreciate this first.

There is something for all readers in this book and as the first of a trilogy will attract a following eagerly awaiting the next instalment. (Me!)

With The Lost Magician Piers Torday has spun The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into a brand new, vital allegory about the importance of both stories and facts, and the danger of ignorance.

I wasn't sure about it at first, as it felt initially like a somewhat simplified, slimmed down version of Narnia, but as I continued to read I got the meaning of the novel and it grew on me immensely. It's very different to what C S Lewis did, and it feels really important in a time when wilful ignorance is so often seen as a virtue.


I really enjoyed its examination of the effects of the war on the children. It has probably one of the most complex treatments of this I've seen, certainly in children's literature. For Larry, the war brought freedom and exploration, the streets and buildings of London turned into a playground for him to explore. Simon felt like he'd been denied the chance of glory by not being old enough to enlist, leaving him eager to prove himself. Evelyn has been directly affected by the horrors of the blitz and remains haunted by it. It's really cleverly done.

When I read Piers Torday's introduction to the Lost Magician where he describes the book as 'in part a homage to The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and partly an interrogation of that classic from a modern perspective' I was a little concerned - after all he was walking on hallowed ground! Could he possibly write something that would hold even a small candle up to my favourite childhood book, would I be disappointed? Well, it seems I shouldn't have worried because I absolutely loved this story and it is one I will return to again and again. I enjoyed recognising all of the storybook characters and allowed myself a tiny smug smile when I recognised one of the Lion Witch & Wardrobe easter eggs hidden in the text. So much is said about the power of reading and indeed of readers that it's impossible to quote my favourite bits, this review would be a mile long if I did so! My favourite character was Evie (or Lucy as my brain kept 'autocorrecting' her name) and I definitely felt a sense of nostalgia as I read on and the comfort of slipping into a beloved library, with a feeling of 'I am home here - I am amongst my tribe'.I can't wait to reread this in physical form, the feel of smooth pages will definitely enhance the experience of being immersed in this bookish, wonder filled world. My favourite MG read so far this year.