Fourteen-year-old Ozzy lives near Portland, Oregon, and is desperate for help. His scientist parents have been kidnapped after discovering a formula that enables mind control. Their work was so top secret Ozzy is afraid to go to the police, but without help, he fears he’ll never find his parents. Then he stumbles across a classified ad in the local newspaper that says “Wizard for Hire. Call 555-SPEL.” Ozzy has read about wizards in books like Harry Potter, but wizards couldn’t actually exist today, could they? After Ozzy meets the wizard Labyrinth — aka Rin — he’s even more skeptical.
Sure, Rin dresses like a wizard, but the short robe and high-top tennis shoes seem unorthodox, as does Rin’s habit of writing notes on his shoes and eating breakfast for every meal. Plus, Rin doesn’t even cast any magic spells, which means that the unexplained coincidences that start happening around Ozzy are just that — coincidences.
With the help of a robotic-talking raven invented by Ozzy’s father, a kind and curious girl at school who decides to help Ozzy, and, of course, a self-proclaimed wizard who may or may not have a magical wand, Ozzy begins an unforgettable quest that will lead him closer to the answers he desperately seeks about his missing parents.
Jan’s Review
I am way beyond the age that the middle grade genre is written for, heck i beyond the target audience for young adult but these are the two genres that are dear to me and that i easily get wrapped up in the stories. Middle grade just has a magical way of drawing me in and not getting bogged down in things like where the parents, that really can’t happen, the minor details of everyday reality just float away.
This is the second series that i have read by this author the previous series Leven thumps and the gateway to foo is the perfect story for a middle grade audience and i admit i was not as lost in that story as i am in this one.
Wizard for hire works so well as we are as lost in the world as our main character we know no more or less then Ozzy does. We maybe thinking this Wizard is in no way a Wizard he really seems way to fake and less likely to pull out a magical wand then say if we had hired some from Hogwarts. In the end though the fact that he shows us hardly any magic really makes the unbelievable things like a car riding on a train to get away from the police, just all that more magical. I was quite disappointed that we did not get a joyful happy ending where the parents magically show back up but it was not as sad as it could of been.
I really did enjoy reading this book and I am eager to see what happens in the rest of this quirky series. If your adult and want a quick fun escape or a middle grader or even a teen i think just about everyone can enjoy the quirky cast of characters in this story.
