THE MONSTER IN THE LAKE

Kit is a wizard, but even so, it’s strange when animals in the park start talking to her.

Kit’s best friends, Alita and Josh, aren’t wizards (yet), but they love all things magical. Taking a break from practicing spells with her mentor, a Black librarian named Faith, Kit wanders over to the park in search of her friends. Oddly enough, all three kids start to hear animals speaking—dogs, crows, and even ants. With a little help from Faith, the kids discover Lizzie, a Lesser Nessie, living in the lake in the park after being evicted from her Scottish loch by some less-than-friendly merfolk. It’s Lizzie’s presence that is causing magic to go wild. Using a portal book, Faith and the kids travel to Scotland to try and reason with the merfolk, but things are more complicated than they at first seemed. The well-developed contemporary magical world enhanced by genuine humor, plenty of action, and lively illustrations allows readers to believe that magic could really exist around them. This sequel to The Dragon in the Library (2021) ticks all the fantasy boxes that young fans of the genre enjoy and is completely accessible to readers new to the series. Refreshingly, pale-skinned, red-haired, stocky Kit has short hair and is shown wearing gender-neutral clothing. Josh is cued as Black, and Alita has brown skin and black hair.

Great fun for those who love a bit of magic and mystery.