THE EVIL WIZARD SMALLBONE

The brand-new middle grade novel by Andre Norton and Prometheus Award-winning author Delia Sherma, exploring rich themes of family, home, and belonging in an adventure set in a fantastical deep-woods coastal Maine, featuring dueling wizards, werewolf coyotes and a magic second-hand bookshop.

When twelve-year-old Nick runs away from his uncle’s in the middle of a blizzard, he stumbles onto a very opinionated bookstore. He also meets its guardian, the self-proclaimed Evil Wizard Smallbone, who calls Nick his apprentice and won’t let him leave, but won’t teach him magic, either. It’s a good thing the bookstore takes Nick’s magical education in hand, because Smallbone’s nemesis—the Evil Wizard Fidelou—and his pack of shape-shifting bikers are howling at the borders. Smallbone might call himself evil, but compared to Fidelou, he’s practically a puppy. And he can’t handle Fidelou alone.

Wildly funny and cozily heartfelt, Delia Sherman’s latest is an eccentric fantasy adventure featuring dueling wizards, enchanted animals, and one stray boy with a surprising knack for magic. Inspired by European folktales, myths of selkies and werewolves and evil wizards in the deep woods, Delia has written a page-turning book made all the more appealingly eerie by the landscape, the culture, and the folkways of rural Maine.

Delia Sherman is the author of books for both adults and children. Her novels include CHANGELING (Viking Children's 2006) and THE MAGIC MIRROR OF THE MERMAID QUEEN (Viking Children’s 2009). Her fantasy novel THE FREEDOM MAZE (Small Beer 2011, Candlewick Press paperback 2014) won the Andre Norton Award and the Prometheus Award and is published in French by Hélium.