Hatching Magic
By Ann Downer

Reviewed by Megan Powell

Ann Downer's Hatching Magic opens in the Middle Ages with the wyvern Wycca searching for a good spot to lay her egg. She manages to find a passage in time and space, ending up in modern Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wycca is pursued by her master Gideon, who has good reason to be concerned for her safety. Gideon's enemy Kobold, along with his demon servant Febrys, are also tracking Wycca. Fortunately Gideon is able to enlist the aid of a modern wizard, and young Theodora "Dodo" Oglethorpe proves to have an affinity for wyverns and provides valuable assistance.

Downer's story is simple, a race to see who will find Wycca and her baby first (and what happens when various parties end up in the same place at the same time). The characters are the book's greatest charm. Even minor players have distinctive personalities and histories (implied or specifically discussed).

Dodo is very firmly rooted in reality, no matter how obsessed she may be with fictional wyverns (or real ones, once she discovers they exist). The death of her mother is only occasionally discussed in specific, but the loss hangs over the Oglethorpe household. Of greater immediate concern is a summer Dodo dreads: her two best friends are away at camp and her biologist father is conducting field research in Laos. His employment is also a source of anxiety. If he doesn't receive tenure soon, he'll need to find a new job and the Oglethorpes will have to move.

We also get a taste of the non-human perspective. Wycca has a gift for getting into trouble--one escapade, a raid on a candy factory, results in a chocolate addiction--and Downer does a good job of depicting the actions and motivations of a creature who is more intelligent than the average pet. The demon Febrys develops throughout the book: at the beginning she is a minion dissatisfied with the way her master treats her, but by the end she is willing to take a stand against him. Along the way, she learns the joys of toenail polish and anchovy-marshmellow-eggshell omelettes (the gross-out factor had to manifest itself somehow).

Downer's Cambridge is quietly multi-cultural, and culture is a matter of what one chooses to embrace, not simply a function of heredity. Michelle Kolodny, the Oglethorpe's colorful (yet eminently sensible) housekeeper, goes by the name of Mikko; her affinity for various things Japanese is noted, but not really explained--it's just part of who she is. Thanks to a mishap involving a fortune cookie, an attempt to call a medieval Western European wizard's wyvern instead calls a Chinese dragon. The Guild of Wizards has branches in a variety of countries, and India boasts at least one competing organization.

Downer does make a connection between magic and genetics: for the past several generations, the women of Dodo's family have had an affinity for dragons (expressed in such diverse ways as a love for paleontology or folktales). Dodo's budding magical abilities are to some extent inborn, so in this respect Dodo is more Harry Potter than Taran Pig-Keeper. I always feel somewhat conflicted about such an arrangement, since it's nice to believe that if you work hard enough, you can be anything you want when you grow up, regardless of your parentage. But I suppose that is balanced by the desire to suddenly learn that you really are special, even if you didn't know it. I can't really fault Downer for tapping into the well-established fantasy tradition of the gifted child.

In short, Hatching Magic is a delightful book. It is clearly aimed at a younger audience, but there is enough substance to satisfy older fantasy readers looking for a lighthearted (but not lite) adventure.

Hatching Magic Ann Downer Atheneum ISBN: 0-689834-00-4 Hardcover, 256 pages May 2003 List Price: $16.95