Weather or Not - Upside Down Magic #5

Volume XXV / Issue 6 - October 12 / 2018
Moon Princess
Moon Princess
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Weather or Not - Upside Down Magic #5

Author: 
Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle & Emily Jenkins
New York, NY: Scholastic (Distributed in Canada by Scholastic Canada), 2018
181 pp., hardcover, $19.99
ISBN: 
978-1-338-22147-3
Grades: 
3-6
Ages: 
8-11
Review by: 
Teresa Iaizzo
3
Excerpt: 

There were five types of typical magic. Schools put students into classes based on those types.

Fuzzies communicated with animals. They learned how to direct schools of fish or send birds on errands.

Flares had fire magic. They studied heat and flames, from cooking to rocket launching.

Flyers practiced height, speed, and direction. Really powerful Flyers like Aunt Margo could take passengers. Others could make objects elevate.

Flickers had invisibility magic. Some learned to make things disappear. Others learned to make themselves vanish.

Finally, Fluxers could transform into animals. They learned to refine their animal bodies down to the last whisker. They practiced holding on to their human minds.

People whose magic didn’t fit neatly into one of these typical five Fs were said to have upside-down magic. That was the nice way to put it.

Ms. Starr’s Upside-Down Magic class is an enchanting place where each student possesses his or her own form of wonky magic. In Weather or Not, the fifth book in the “Upside-Down Magic” series, readers meet Willa, a young girl who has a very serious problem.

Essentially, Willa has a very particular form of upside-down magic. In fact, she does not even fit into any of the five types of typical magic that everyone knows about. Willa just can’t stop raining indoors. Whenever she gets scared or upset, it starts to pour, ruining everything in her path, including friendships.

When Willa gets paired up with Nory on a big school project, things go from bad to worse as Nory thinks that Willa is a crybaby and should just grow up while Willa hates being bossed around. Then there’s Elliott, Nory’s best friend who happens to be friends with Willa too. Nory expects Elliott to be on her side, but when he refuses to take sides in their war, things really come to a head. Can their friendships stand the test of time?

Written by the literary powerhouse trio of Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins, Weather or Not is a charming read that focuses on the harmful effects of labels, and the importance of being true to oneself. Willa, with the help of her friends, must come to terms with who she is in order to prove that she does belong. Regardless of her wonky powers, Willa eventually sees that being different is not all that bad. A very worthwhile lesson indeed.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Teresa Iaizzo is a librarian with the Toronto Public Library.