The Real Boy

By Anne Ursu, Erin McGuire (Illustrator)

A boy's quiet life is upended as illness spreads and dark forces emerge.

4.0/5 Goodreads · 6,211 ratings

341 pages

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Bookroo's summary

Oscar, a shop boy for a powerful magician, finds comfort in his small world. But when children fall ill and a sinister presence stirs in the forest, Oscar must confront the unpredictable reality beyond his cellar. Can he wield the magic needed to save his island, or will the darkness consume it all?

From the publisher

National Book Award Longlist * Bank Street Children’s Book Committee Best Book of the Year”Beautifully written and elegantly structured, this fantasy is as real as it gets.”–Franny Billingsley, author of ChimeThe Real Boy, Anne Ursu’s follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master’s shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar’s world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now even magic may not be enough to save it.

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