Calendar Mysteries – May Magic

Ron Roy's May Magic is a giggly Calendar Mysteries story for 5 year olds about a stage hypnotist and a mum who might just have turned into a duck.

What happens

It's the fifth of the Calendar Mysteries, and it works perfectly well on its own. Six-year-old Brian Pinto has found an advert in his comic. Raise ducks, sell pillows stuffed with their feathers, get rich! His mum says no (he can't even keep his side of the bedroom tidy).

Then the twins spot a flyer for Hypo the Hypnotist, who's doing one show at the high school. It's Mother's Day tomorrow. So Brian has a plan. Take Mum to the show, get her up on stage and ask Hypo to make her love ducks.

His twin Bradley thinks it's a terrible idea. And when Hypo pulls back the curtain of his bright red booth, Mum has gone. In her place is a big white duck wearing her new bracelet, with pink polish on its toenails!

Hypo changes her back. Sort of. The next morning she's splashing about in a very long bath and singing duck songs. There's popping corn all over the bathroom floor. On the way to lunch she thanks the boys for getting ready so "quackly". Afterwards she stands in a muddy puddle and splashes.

Is she still part duck? Bradley is properly worried. Brian is mostly wondering whether this means he can finally have his ducks. So the twins round up Nate and Lucy and set off to track Hypo down and get their real mum back.

It's a lovely one for children who are just getting going with chapter books. The sentences are short, there's lots of chatter and a joke on almost every page. Neat Bradley and messy Brian bicker like real brothers do, and Bradley's horror gets funnier every time Mum does something else a bit ducky.

There's a proper answer to the mystery as well, and it's a good one. You'll have to read it to find out.

It's an American book, so Mother's Day falls in May (that's the American date). If your reader knows it as Mothering Sunday, which comes earlier in the year here, that might need a quick word.

What to read next

If your reader enjoys the trip to the Shangri-la Hotel, the twins' big brother Josh has mysteries of his own with his friends Dink and Ruth Rose. In The Absent Author they go looking for a famous writer who doesn't turn up to a book signing, and gloomy Mr Linkletter is behind the hotel desk again.