Magic Below Stairs

by Caroline Stevermer

Paper Book, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

Fic SF Stevermer

Publication

New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, 2010.

Description

Ten-year-old Frederick, who is surreptitiously watched over by a household elf, is plucked from a London orphanage to be a servant to a wealthy wizard, and eventually his uncanny abilities lead him to become the wizard's apprentice.

Media reviews

School Library Journal

This cozy tale of household magic, complete with a dash of adventure and a pinch of danger, will have children cheering for Frederick as he finds his way in his new home.

User reviews

LibraryThing member nessreader

This book has a younger target audience than the prev (light romance) books in the sequence, but it's fun to see the wicked marquess and his Kate from a different point of view.

The softening, for modern children's sensibilities, of horrors of workhouse and deadening effect of total emotional

neglect, was niggling at me as I read (had recently read biography of real workhouse boy of same era, and it was considerably less happy story as in real life the world was not populated mainly by people of good will.)

The hero is a brutal pragmatist and the tone reminded me a lot of Diana Wynne Jones - which is a very good thing in a ya fantasy.

Show Less

10 more

LibraryThing member readinggeek451

A fun children's fantasy spin-off from Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia collaboration with Wrede.

Frederick Lincoln is plucked from an orphanage to be a servant boy in Lord Scofield's London house. He makes friends for the first time and encounters brownies, wizardry, and a deadly curse. But

Frederick is plucky and resourceful, and has hidden talents.

Show Less

LibraryThing member prkcs

LibraryThing member YouthGPL

Elly says, " David Copperfield meets Sepimus Heap meets Harry Potter...complete with a house elf, er, umm, a brownie named Billy Bly. Orphan Frederick Lincoln, unknowingly has magical powers, used and abused in the orphanage, rescued by design of the brownie, and settled into a wealthy wizard's

household. Interesting plotting of the story, great character development, good read for 3rd to 4th grade. Part of a series, but stands alone very well.

Show Less

LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

Fun, cute. It's set shortly after The Grand Tour, in Thomas and Kate's household just before their first child is born. I like Frederick, and it's great to get a look at Thomas and Kate from an outsider's perspective. Billy Bly is neat - I like that he's (reasonably) helpful and willing, but really

not very strong. What nearly destroys him can be easily dealt with by human magic, once he's pointed out its existence... And the final bit was pretty obvious to me from way back. It fits Frederick so well. Oh, and there's an off-hand comment made about magic being kept from leaking into your spells by using foreign languages, which ties this universe to Mairelon's - not definitively, but an interesting hint. Now, are there going to be any more of the 'childrens' stories? Because I enjoyed this better than any of the three 'mainline' stories...

Show Less

LibraryThing member bmlg

This was a nice light read. I was pleased to find an orphan hero who doesn't have a Tremendous Destiny and isn't the True Heir to anything. Frederick has the old fairy tale virtues of hard work and kindness, and is duly rewarded. (I also did a bit of happy hopping to see the Belly Blind featured in

a novel.) The characterisation is light, as one might expect from a middle-grade novel of 200 pages, but Frederick does have some convincing conflict, misery, and jealousy to get through, and some good friends to find.

The setting is after Sorcery and Cecelia, after the marriages and before the children.

Show Less

LibraryThing member NatalieSW

Entertaining, a low-key way, pleasant read, good for young middle-grader readers. I feel her adult/YA books "A College of Magics," Sorcery and Cecilia," and "A Scholar of Magics" are more exciting books, whose narratives have greater forward motion (if that makes sense), and older middle-grade

readers may prefer them.

Show Less

LibraryThing member romsfuulynn

Quick read middle grade story about an orphan in the "Sorcery & Cecelia" world.

The age of the protagonist makes it a children's book and there's nothing except a fairly scary curse to make it unsuitable for fairly young readers.

On the other hand, it kept my interest as much as if it were a short

story for adults, by having stuff that an adult would enjoy but a kid would pass right over.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Shimmin

A solid, pleasant sidework to the Sorcery and Cecilia series. This was a much simpler book, with no enigmas to untangle; the central plot was easy to predict, but none the worse for it. In some ways, it's a nice change of pace, as the main series is sometimes a bit over-tangled.

LibraryThing member shadrachanki

Magic Below Stairs is a companion novel to the Cecelia and Kate books by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. It has a slightly younger target audience, and it is not written in a letter/journal format the way the Cecelia and Kate novels are.

I definitely want to see more of Frederick, and I

really hope that Caroline Stevermer continues writing stories about him. The ending of the book definitely seems to leave that possibility open.

Show Less

LibraryThing member haloedrain

Cute and light, but it could have been much better if it were a bit longer and fleshed out better. Nothing is really explained, and the ending especially felt a bit thrown together.

Fewer