Mr Majeika Vanishes

Humphrey Carpenter's Mr Majeika Vanishes is a zany rescue adventure for 6 year olds in which Class Three have to save their wizard teacher.

What happens

It's the first day of a new term at St Barty's and Mr Majeika has gone. The head teacher says he's retired. Class Three know he'd never leave without saying goodbye. And why is Hamish Bigmore smirking?

Worse still, the new teacher is Hamish's mum! She gives her darling boy top marks for a made-up story about being kidnapped by aliens. She lets him eat chocolate all through lessons. Hamish has never been happier.

So Thomas, Pete and Jody go looking. At Mr Majeika's lodgings they find his room turned upside down and a note in his writing. Someone has played a trick on him, and he's been taken away by the Wizards' Silly Crime Squad. The note says "Try the bike".

That bike turns out to be very special indeed. It flies the three of them up through the clouds to Wizardford-upon-Sky, the city where all the wizards live. But the gates are shut and the whole place is strangely empty.

This is where it gets gloriously silly. There's a fence that turns you soft and squidgy like Plasticine, so you can stretch your nose or grow a neck like a snake. There's a love potion factory, and poor Jody ends up swooning over Hamish, of all people (Thomas and Pete are appalled). Then a "Sensible Mixture" starts turning her into Hamish instead!

It's one story from start to finish, rather than a set of short ones, so it's a nice step up for a reader who's ready for a longer adventure. The chapters are short and the ideas keep coming. The witch Wilhelmina Worlock, who has made trouble for Mr Majeika before, is up to no good as usual, and it's the children who have to be clever this time.

The love potion bits are played entirely for laughs. Some younger readers will find the "Hamish, you're such a dreamboat" scenes the funniest part of the whole book!

Does your reader like it when the kids are the heroes and the grown-ups are hopeless? Then this will go down very well.

What to read next

For another adventure where a spell goes wrong and the whole class ends up somewhere strange, try Mr Majeika on the Internet. A new computer arrives, and before long Class Three are stuck inside it with Hamish at the keyboard.