In the Shadow of Harry Potter: The Wizardry of Nita and Kit

Fifteen years before Harry Potter exploded on the scene, there were young wizards in America. The Young Wizard series is written by the prolific and marvelous author, Diane Duane.

The first book "So You Want to Be a Wizard" was first published in the USA in 1983. New books in the YW series appeared sporadically every few years at first. Harcourt Trade Publishers (Magic Carpet Books) acquired the series and established a new publication schedule. There are more than a million copies of the Young Wizards books in print around the world.

Depending on when you read this article, there are eight Young Wizards novels. Or more. Book 9: A Wizard of Mars, will be published in late 2009.

Rumor has it: the tenth and eleventh novels are in the works, but so far Diane Duane has not released any information about their titles or plotlines. Duane's protagonists do not graduate, aging one year per novel and disappear into adulthood as JK Rawling's did. The Harry Potter books set themselves a clear outline - Harry's wizardly education, ending with graduation and the long awaiting battle between good and evil. Duane reassures her fans that unlike the Harry Potter books, she has no end book in sight. She will keep writing novels in the Young Wizard series "until she doesn't feel like writing them any more."

One of the joys of fiction is the flexibility of time. In the first Harry Potter book, Harry went from 0-11 in a heartbeat. I was still going "aah" over the messianic baby left on the doorstep when BOOM a decade of neglect and abuse had occurred off-screen and Harry's household was under an avalanche of owls. In Duane's magical world, Kit and Nita age more slowly since each book details the outcome of a "assignment", a magical quest or "errantry" rather than a school year. The assignment and subsequently the novel may take up the span of a summer vacation or might happen in an alternate dimension allowing them to be home before dinner.

Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan aren't wizards in training. They are wizards. Magic is something that is. You find it or it finds you and you have the choice. Will I or won't I? In a typically democratic and essentially American way, magic is a choice, a job, a responsibility and not an inheritance or genetic accident (as in the case of Hogwarts students.) Nita and Kit just two ordinary kids (tweens) living in the suburbs outside a big American city. Each of them bullied for being different. Nita for being too bookish. Kit for being nonwhite. Each find the Wizard's Manual by accident. Except nobody ever finds the Wizard's Manual by accident. The Universe leaves it where you can find it. You have to be the right person for the job. If you are, and you agree to take the Wizard's Oath... in the blink of an eye, the whole world can change! Or maybe you change and suddenly see the world for the impossible magical place it is.

I'm not telling you any more. You've read this far and thus proved your ability to read. Go to the library or Powells.com and get yourself the book.

So you want to be a wizard? Take the wizard's oath.

The Wizard's Oath

In Life's name and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is its gift in Life's service alone, rejecting all other usages. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so -- till Universe's end.