Moonlight on the Magic Flute by Mary Pope Osborne sends 7 year olds to a Vienna palace in 1762, where Jack has the most embarrassing five minutes of his life.<\/p>\n
Merlin’s new job for Jack and Annie is a big one. Find a brilliant artist and help them share their gift with the world.<\/p>\n
All they are given is a royal invitation, a warning about unexpected dangers, and their magic wand turned into a small silver flute. Blow it and one of them must sing. Whatever they sing comes true, once, and then the magic is finished. Choose the moment carefully.<\/p>\n
Then there is the outfit. Annie gets a pink hooped dress she can barely walk in. Jack gets buckled shoes, a velvet coat and a powdered wig that makes him sneeze.<\/p>\n
The bow is the bit your reader will remember. Jack is told not to rise until Her Imperial Majesty says so. He bows. Nothing happens. He bows lower. The flute falls out of his pocket, then his hat comes off, then his wig, then he sneezes and slips over, and the entire row of imperial children falls about laughing.<\/p>\n
It is toe-curling and very funny and Jack takes ages to recover from it. If you have a child who dies of embarrassment when something goes wrong in front of people, this will land hard in a good way.<\/p>\n
The annoying little boy who laughs loudest is called Wolfie. He is six, he has a tiny sword, he keeps announcing that he is brilliant, and he wants everyone to come and dance in the garden. His older sister Nan is eleven and much more sensible. Working out who Wolfie actually is happens well before the children do, and that is half the fun.<\/p>\n
This one sits a long way into the series. Merlin, Teddy, Kathleen and the wand all turn up as old friends, and a reader arriving cold will meet a fair bit of backstory in the first few pages. It still works on its own, but it is not the place to meet Jack and Annie for the first time.<\/p>\n
If they want another mission where the job is to nudge somebody famous onto the right path, A Good Night For Ghosts takes them to New Orleans and a young musician called Louis Armstrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moonlight on the Magic Flute by Mary Pope Osborne sends 7 year olds to a Vienna palace in 1762, where Jack has the most embarrassing five minutes of his life. Merlin’s new job for Jack and Annie is a big one. Find a brilliant artist and help them share their gift with the world. All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11209,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":6665,"lr_next_read_anchor":"A Good Night For Ghosts","lr_seo_hook":"A wig, a bow that goes badly wrong and a very annoying six year old."},"book_tag":[1045],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[691],"class_list":["post-8108","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-adventure-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-mary-pope-osborne"],"yoast_title":"Moonlight on the Magic Flute by Mary Pope Osborne | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A wig, a bow that goes badly wrong and a very annoying six year old. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n