Sticks & Stones is the second Upside Down Magic book by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins, a magic-school story for 8 year olds about children whose powers come out sideways.<\/p>\n
In Nory Horace’s world, magic arrives at about ten and then you go to magic school. There are five tidy categories. Flyers fly, Flares do fire, Fluxers turn into animals, Fuzzies talk to animals, Flickers go invisible.<\/p>\n
Nory is a Fluxer. The trouble is what she turns into.<\/p>\n
Other Fluxers spend their first month perfecting a black kitten, then work on the colours. Nory turns into a koat, which is a kitten’s body with a small goat’s head on top, and which eats socks, carpets, a tablecloth and part of her aunt’s sofa. She has also been, on separate occasions, a skunk-elephant and a puppy with squid legs.<\/p>\n
So she’s in the Upside-Down Magic class. Eight children, one teacher who is very keen on headstands, and a school that doesn’t quite know where else to put them.<\/p>\n
The others are just as good. Andres floats on the ceiling. Pepper frightens animals instead of soothing them. Marigold shrinks things and nearly swallowed her own toothbrush. Bax turns into a large grey rock, most days, never on purpose, and can’t turn back without a painted-on potion that tastes of rotten lettuce.<\/p>\n
That last one is the heart of it. Bax is stuck and humiliated and Nory keeps rescuing him, which is somehow worse. The book is very good on the small daily indignity of being the child other children have a nickname for. Wonky. Flops.<\/p>\n
And it doesn’t stay at name-calling. Before long, someone is going round with a petition to have the whole class moved out of the school.<\/p>\n
It’s American through and through, so your reader will meet fifth grade, sneakers and the cafeteria. Nothing they can’t follow, but you might get asked.<\/p>\n
This is the second one, so you’re stepping into a school year already underway. It explains itself as it goes and you won’t be lost.<\/p>\n
For a reader who enjoys a school that has sorted its pupils badly, Dr Critchlore’s School for Minions plays the same trick with monsters. Runt Higgins is a werewolf boy at a training academy for henchmen, and the dormitory list has put him in the wrong place again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sticks & Stones is the second Upside Down Magic book by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins, a magic-school story for 8 year olds about children whose powers come out sideways. In Nory Horace’s world, magic arrives at about ten and then you go to magic school. There are five tidy categories. Flyers fly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10166,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7268,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Dr Critchlore's School for Minions","lr_seo_hook":"A girl whose animal magic comes out mixed up, in a class of misfits."},"book_tag":[1047],"age_group":[26],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1203,1163,890],"class_list":["post-9642","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-magic-books","age_group-books-for-8-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-emily-jenkins","book_author-lauren-myracle","book_author-sarah-mlynowski"],"yoast_title":"Upside-Down Magic 2 – Sticks & Stones by Sarah Mlynowski, Emily Jenkins & Lauren Myracle | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A girl whose animal magic comes out mixed up, in a class of misfits. For ages 8+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n