I discovered Angie Sage’s series when I was around twelve or thirteen and I was hooked immediately. The first thing that struck me about this series was the writing style. From the beginning we have a distinct voice and a distinct world, charming and dangerous and affably realistic all at the same time. This isn’t a Christian book. The underlying philosophy behind the magic tends to swing toward a Star Wars-like balance of good and evil. However, it’s clean and perfectly suitable for any child who understands the difference between dark magic and good magic — in fact, this ties in quite well to my earlier post about magic in books. It’s like Harry Potter. There are ‘white’ witches and ghosts, but nonetheless, good is quite clearly good and bad is quite clearly bad, some practices like divination excepted. There were one or two bad words in all of the 7-book series. On the whole, for mainstream middle-grade material, this was fairly clean and moral.
Septimus Heap, the seventh son of the seventh son, disappears the night he is born, pronounced dead by the midwife. That same night, the baby’s father, Silas Heap, comes across an abandoned child in the snow—a newborn girl with violet eyes. Who is this mysterious baby girl, and what really happened to the Heaps’ beloved son Septimus?
The first book in this enthralling series by Angie Sage leads readers on a fantastic journey filled with quirky characters and Magykal charms, potions, and spells. Magyk is the original story of lost and rediscovered identities, rich with humor and heart.
Amazon Blurb
One thing this series really emphasized was strong nuclear families. I loved that, despite it being a coming-of-age story, there were no soppy crushes, no rebellious teenagers who end up being smarter than their parents, and none of those other elder-disrespecting foolish stereotypes we see nowadays. Though the family relationship sometimes faces challenges and conflicts, they stick together and lean on each other in an admirable way.
The writing style is creative and hilarious, and is never too dark. The violence is minor, the worst being a gunshot wound that is not described in any graphic detail. A sensitive kid might be a bit grossed-out at times, as there are zombie-type monsters, a sentient skeleton, and some other creepy beasties. This book is perfect for middle grade through YA and would be perfect for a kid who loves Harry Potter. Quite frankly, it would serve as a fine replacement for Harry. It’s language-free and has more respectable characters and better themes.
If you’ve read this series, I’d love to hear what you think about it. Have a lovely day!
