Edward Eager’s fifth novel in his Magic series, Magic or Not, is his take, more or less, on Edith Nesbit’s The Wonderful Garden, that children’s book where neither readers nor characters could be entirely sure if magic was happening, or not. As in The Wonderful Garden, Eager’s characters—twin brother and sister James and Laura, neighbors Kip and Lydia, and, to an extent, somewhat annoying neighbor Gordy—spend their time at least trying to make magic work. Where The Wonderful Garden worked with the magic of flowers, Magic or Not uses a magic wishing well. The magic—if it is magic—tends to work only when the children have laudable motives. And the magic—if it is magic—can be easily explained away by coincidence or the well meaning attempts of humans to make everything look like magic. And, like The Wonderful Garden, I find it oddly unsatisfying.
[Also, unsatisfying “ghosts.”]