So You Want to Be a Wizard

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Cover for the book So You Want To Be a Wizard.

So You Want To Be a Wizard is the first book in the Young Wizards series consisting of eight books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published in the next year.

Synopsis

Juanita Callahan (13) is running away from bullies and takes refuge in the library. She goes to the children section and finds a book about magic titled, So You Want To Be a Wizard. She reads a part of it and takes it home. On the way there she is cornered by her bullies and they beat her up, taking away a space pen her uncle gave her. Nita goes home and takes the Wizard's Oath before going to sleep. Next morning she wakes up, lookes at her Wizard's book and sees her name in the wizards list.

She goes to a quiet place to make a retrival spell for her pen and meets Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, who is also a wizard and is making a spell, they tie both spells together and are taken to Manhattan, but it looks different. They see something huge going their way and make a spell to gain energy, which ends up bringing a white hole from space. The white hole's name is, when translated into English, Khairelikoblepharehglukumeilichephriedosd'enagouni- or, more simply, "Fred".

The next day at school Fred and Nita attempt to get Nita's pen back from her bullies, but Fred miscalculates the gravity required to simply lift the pen from the bullies' possession, and instead accidently swallows it. This leads to Fred emitting objects instead of radiation and particles, a most unfortunate incident that results in the spontaneous appearance of a television, a learjet, and a blue Mercedes, among other things. To fix the problem, Nita, Kit, and Fred go to the Advisories' house after school. There, Fred's problem is fixed and Carl and Tom, the local Advisories, tell the young wizards and Fred about the existence of the bright book, sometimes called the Book of Night with Moon, and the dark book, the Book Which Is Not Named. The advisories then tell Nita and Kit that they can retrieve her pen by using a World Gate.

Nita, Kit, and Fred go to Manhattan that weekend to find the Wold Gate and retrieve Nita's Space Pen. Unfortunately, the gate has been moved because of a construction. They must go to the top of a building in order to reach the World Gate. They then make a spell to make the air thick enough to walk on and walk along the stairs made from air and Nita begins the spell to get her pen back. As she is doing so, perytons, wolf-like animals, appear. The sight of the perytons cause Nita to break off the spell, and something very odd happens.