Scott Reintgen’s The Problem with Prophecies is a funny, big-hearted fantasy for 10 year olds about a girl whose very first vision shows a boy from her street about to die.<\/p>\n
In Celia Cleary’s family, the gift of seeing the future skips a generation. Her mum’s a lawyer with no magic at all. Her Grammy is a seer who does readings in a very ordinary townhouse (no crystal ball, no cats, plenty of burnt toast).<\/p>\n
Celia’s first vision is due when she’s been alive for exactly 4,444 days. She’s been waiting for it since she was three.<\/p>\n
It arrives in the middle of a card game. Suddenly she’s standing on the road just outside her neighbourhood, watching quiet Jeffrey Johnson walk home from school. A car clips a traffic cone. Another car swerves.<\/p>\n
Grammy’s answer is gentle and very firm. A death vision means fate has decided, and fate always gets its way. Celia isn’t having that. She runs off and starts shoving traffic cones out of the road, then invents a job with the Homeowners’ Association when a construction worker asks what on earth she’s doing!<\/p>\n
It works. Jeffrey walks home safe. Then, on her way back, Celia smells campfire smoke again and sees a brand new accident, this time at school.<\/p>\n
What makes it such a good read is Celia’s voice. She’s brave and stubborn and a bit of a mess, and she’s funny even when things are awful. Grammy is a treat as well. She uses an ‘old spell’ on Celia that turns out to be a firm voice.<\/p>\n
There’s lots of real life folded in. A best friend who stopped speaking to her after calling her a freak. Two loyal mates at a courtyard table where everyone’s proudly weird. A mum she can’t quite tell the whole truth to.<\/p>\n
Death sits right at the centre of this one, though. Celia watches a boy she knows get hit by a car, then fall from the top of the school bleachers, and Grammy warns that death can be delayed but never undone. A child who worries about accidents might find that heavy going. For a reader who can take it, it’s thoughtful and often very funny.<\/p>\n
If they’d like another girl waiting for her family’s magic to show up, try The Islands of Chaldea, which opens with a girl shut underground all night, hoping for the vision every woman in her family has had before her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scott Reintgen’s The Problem with Prophecies is a funny, big-hearted fantasy for 10 year olds about a girl whose very first vision shows a boy from her street about to die. In Celia Cleary’s family, the gift of seeing the future skips a generation. Her mum’s a lawyer with no magic at all. Her Grammy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12552,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9152,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Islands of Chaldea","lr_seo_hook":"Celia's first vision shows the boy down her street about to die."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[895],"class_list":["post-9340","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-scott-reintgen"],"yoast_title":"The Problem with Prophecies by Scott Reintgen | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Celia's first vision shows the boy down her street about to die. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n