The Wizard in the Wood

Louie Stowell's The Wizard in the Wood is a funny magical adventure for 7 year olds about a dragon's egg that goes missing just as school starts.

What happens

Kit Spencer is the youngest wizard in the world. She'd much rather be up a tree than reading a book, which is a bit awkward when all her magic lives under a library.

This time the Wizards' Council want to meet her. Their library is enormous, and the wizards are VERY old (Kit reckons the Chairwizard's birthday candles must be a fire hazard). Inside a dragon's dream, an egg rises out of a pool of fire, and Kit is the one who gets to carry it home.

A dragon egg has to hatch under a library of its own. The surprise? Kit's school is getting one, with a brand-new book wood growing in the ground beneath it.

Her best friends Josh and Alita can hardly believe their luck. Josh wants to know if there's a book on dragon egg care. Alita cradles the egg like a baby and squeaks like a boiling kettle.

Then disaster strikes, and the egg is gone.

This is the third book about Kit and her gang. It drops you straight back in with them, but it's easy to follow.

It's full of daft jokes. Their portal book is a comic about a rabbit on a quest, so getting to the council means a forest made of jelly and a fight with a giant robot made of glue. The dragon on the council tells Kit very firmly that dragons are not farm chickens.

There's some real danger too. Hooded wizards turn up, fireballs fly, and one of the friends is knocked down by a spell. That might make a younger reader gasp, so it's nice to be close by for that bit.

Kit is such a likeable hero. She gets things wrong, she hates being called dopey, and she's braver than she feels. Her two friends are just as lovely, especially Josh with his spotless white trainers.

If you've got a child who'd rather be climbing trees (or one who'd rather be reading in one), they'll feel at home with this gang.

What to read next

If they'd like more of Kit's wobbly magic, The Monster in the Lake has Kit's spells going wrong in all sorts of odd ways, from exploding fireballs to strange readings on the librarian's magic-measuring flute.