Hither & Nigh

August 1, 2022
Three years after Nell Batista’s brother, River, vanished from Washington Square Park, skipping class to hustle chess players lands seventh grader Nell in the Last Chance Club, an after-school program. She’s there alongside three eighth graders: beautiful bully Annika Rapp, once friend to River; cute new boy Tom Gunnerson, a rich kid in for stealing; and hulking Crud, who is rumored to be violent. Instead of doing community service, they’re supposed to “perform miracles, help avert disasters, et cetera” by learning magic from mysterious Mr. Boot, who bears strangely detailed files on each child. As her magic skills develop and Nell glimpses River, she soon stumbles upon the Nigh—an alternate realm in which centuries’ worth of children, kidnapped for their powerful imaginations, are trained by Magicians to build towering cities with their minds. Balancing the tweens’ everyday social pressures with a dangerous quest across the fantastical 19th-century version of New York City that is the Nigh, Potter (the Big Foot and Little Foot series) satisfyingly blends contemporary snark with physical adventures heightened by spell-casting misfires, anxious close calls, and just-scary-enough monsters. Nell cues as Latinx; other characters default to white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary.

August 1, 2022
Magic isn't just for the good students. Three years after seventh grader Nell's brother, River, disappeared from Washington Square Park in Manhattan, her class-cutting and gambling on chess games in the park land her in the Last Chance Club at school. It's a group designed for students who are close to being expelled and is populated by a motley crew. There's good-looking bully Annika, a former neighbor and friend of River's, who moved after her mother married a wealthy man. They're joined by Crud, a mountain of a kid rumored to be guilty of heinous acts, and Tom--or as Nell thinks of him, The Viking--a cute boy with fingers sticky from theft and his constant supply of Twizzlers. The mismatched foursome wouldn't normally associate, but when Mr. Boot, the club's leader, informs them that they will be learning magic as a way to become literal angels, they're forced to get along and work together. But the more they learn, the more Nell questions Mr. Boot's motives, especially as hints arise that River's disappearance may be linked to the magical world. The book tries to do a lot and largely succeeds. Readers hoping to become enmeshed in conspiracies with links to folklore, mythology, and literature will be in heaven and will readily forgive a few plot holes. Main characters read White. A thrilling page-turner. (Fantasy. 9-13)

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September 9, 2022

Gr 4-8-A New York City seventh grader at Bright Futures Academy, Nell Batista faces detention with eighth graders Annika, "Crud," and Tom. Annika has brown hair and green eyes; Crud has dark hair; Tom has yellow hair and blue eyes. They are startled when their detention monitor, Mr. Boot, announces he is there to teach them magic using chopsticks. That day, each of them is permitted to wish for something lost, and Nell chooses her missing brother, River, who disappeared three years ago from Washington Square Park. Nell's life becomes a dizzying mix of magic classes, everyday problems with friends and family, and eventually, a journey to the Nigh-a parallel realm where magical beings dwell. Nell returns to Hither (her world) but suspects her brother River was brought to Nigh and makes another expedition there with her friends. This is a whimsical, ambitious story, built by children's imagination and numerous significant subplots. It is grounded by Nell's first-person storytelling and her love for River. The abundance of plotting is further anchored by the moral decisions each character must make: should Nell cage a magical creature to find her brother? Did Annika use social media to bully a classmate? Universal realistic themes are used as jumping-off points for magical elevators, talking park statues, and other fantastical details that readers will find appealing, and the action ends on a cliffhanger that will leave tweens wanting more. No skin tones are described. VERDICT A domestic fantasy that covers a lot of ground with solid character development, this novel will be enjoyed by many readers.-Caitlin Augusta

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Starred review from September 15, 2022
Grades 5-7 *Starred Review* Fresh clues about what happened to her vanished little brother send seventh-grader Nell Batista shuttling between two alternate versions of New York City, neither one quite ours--as readers will discover when, first, an after-school club the chronic truant is forced to join turns out to be a class in elementary magic, and then, after an attempted kidnapping, she finds herself immersed in Central Park's Bethesda Fountain, talking with the bronze angel. In fact, Potter so stocks her tale with exotic creatures, from tiny sprites to scary sewer monsters, that it's sometimes hard to tell Nell's familiar Hither from the (somewhat) more magical Nigh. But both prove excitingly dangerous places as Nell and allies who, like many of the people and locales in this delicious fantasy, aren't what they seem at first, or second, glance pass back and forth on the way to a climactic narrow escape from a ring of cruel magicians trafficking in children with fertile imaginations. The scary bits are leavened by sly humor and terrific flights of fancy. Some questions are answered by the end, but a general lack of resolution combined with an uncommonly appealing cast leave plenty of reasons to conjure up sequels.

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