Comedy
Avon the snail has never had an adventure. And adventure, he has heard, is the key to a happy life. So with his new friend Edward the ant, Avon sets out on a journey to find the excitement his life has been missing.
The travelers meet all manner of wise, weird, and intriguing creatures--including a dragon!--and it's not long before their adventures begin.
Meg and Edward are twins, but they couldn't be more different and they don't get along. She is tall, smart, and pretty, and she has just been invited to joint the High Achievers' Club at her special middle school. He is the world's biggest loser, an immature, runty underachiever. She is terrified her fancy friends will find out about him.
At the elementary school my boys went to, the fifth grade teacher always had them perform a Shakespeare play. Mind, it wasn't the full length play, (Hamlet takes more than three hours to do) but a twenty five minute version of it. There was always something rather funny about it, and it wasn't just because the lines were funny. It's hard to be too serious with a eleven year old Hamlet.
When I was in high school I was on a soccer team. Actually, I was the goal tender and captain on that team. We played for two seasons and lost every game we ever played. My boys loved to hear how bad a player their dad was. This book is based on the experience of being on that team.
Sometimes books change a great deal in the course of writing. When I first wrote this book I wanted it to be very serious, even tragic tale. I gave it to a good friend to read. She said, "I hate to tell you, but some of your book made me laugh." I was surprised, but went back and read the book again. She was right. It wasn't tragic at all.
When I was a boy. growing up in the 1940's, I listened every week day to the radio adventures which were written for kids. How I loved them!
It was a number of years ago when I visited Naples, Italy, and wandered about the twisting, narrow streets of the old city, then climbed to the high hills which over looked the bay. I recall thinking what a great place for a story. MIDNIGHT MAGIC is the result. A ghost story with a ghost, that may not be a ghost. A magician who does not believe in magic.
Could I, I once asked myself, write a book that was both funny and sad at the same time?
As usual with me this book came about because I was thinking of a number of things. A member of my family was very ill. "Write something funny for me," she said. Then too I was reading a lot of old children's books. Finally, some good friends had just bought an old railway station in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. All elements combined to help me create the book.
