The Kingdom of Broken Magic

LoveReading4Kids Says

October 2023 Debut of the Month

Maggie and Josh’s friendship bond is at the heart of Christine Aziz’s The Kingdom of Broken Magic, a spritely, atmospheric story that’s impossible to put down.

Residents of the Scribbens Home for Very Wayward Children, all Maggie and Josh knew “was that they had either been dumped on the Home’s doorstep or dropped down its coal chute as babies”. Though they’re skilled pickpockets, their every attempt to escape the Home has been thwarted, until the day a circus rolls into town and Maggie falls under its spell, and into a bewitching, perilous world.

Here, in Mrs Gumbo’s Flying Circus, Maggie meets the “spectacular, audacious, miraculous, breath-taking, one and-only Flying Lulu”, who promises to make her a star, and to deliver a letter to Josh in secret. But, as Maggie is sucked into the circus, mystified by its vanishing performers and animals, Josh embarks on a quest to find his dear friend.

Vibrantly visual, in The Kingdom of Broken Magic Aziz has created a richly-imagined world that fizzes with drama and big themes, and all delivered in an energetic style that will engage 8+-year-old adventure-lovers.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About The Kingdom of Broken Magic

A whirlwind of a story with talking tigers, a knitting elephant and a sinister monkey. In the Kingdom of Broken Magic, who can you trust?

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