Bran Hambric doesn’t know a thing about himself. He was found at age 6 locked in a bank vault in the town of Dunce. He has no memory of anything before being discovered in the vault. He’s being raised by the Wilomas family, only because Mr. Wilomas worked at the bank and is forced to obey the “Finders Keepers Law.” If you find it, you have to keep it, even if “it” is a kid.

In Dunce, magic is outlawed. When Bran is confronted by a gangly creature that actually knows his name, he knows something is up – something about his past. Something that has to do with magic. Clues lead Bran to a magical library, a mysterious girl, a bank employee that is much more than she seems and a gnome. Yeah, a gnome: short guy, long beard, tall red hat shaped like a cone. Together the new friends set out to uncover Bran’s past and confront the Farfield curse.

An orphan kid living in a house where the family treats him badly. The kid finds out he’s magic.  A bad guy wants the kid dead. Oh, and there’s a curse involving the kid. Sound familiar? I know it does. There are an awful lot of Harry Potter similarities…but even so, Bran Hambric is a fun story anyway. I would call it fan fiction. Fan fiction is fiction created by the admirer of a certain story or that story’s characters. Kaleb didn’t plagiarize, he just took some ideas and built his own story around them. There are enough original ideas to keep the story interesting. AND, he’s a teenage author – not too shabby. He says that there are more Bran Hambric stories coming. It will be fun to see where he goes with Bran’s story and how his writing matures. Author: Kaleb Nation

• Official Website Bran Hambric
• Bran Hambric The Farfield Curse on CD

More boys coming into their magical powers:

Susan, Roy, Henry & Emma live in Iowa. It’s summer, it’s hot and they’re bored. They do have bikes though, so they take off exploring. They really don’t expect to have much happen, but riding bikes is at least more interesting than sitting on the porch bored and hot. Imagine their surprise when they find a mysterious brick wall rising up out of the middle of a cornfield.

The kids try to think of all the different reasons the wall might be there. Thinking about this is at least interesting and something to do, but the sun is still hot. The kids are hot. The kids are thirsty. One of them wishes for a root beer float and suddenly the kids find themselves transported to a diner…serving root beer floats! Now this is a discovery!

Through trial and error the kids figure out the rules that make the wishing wall work. They find that they can wish their way through time or space. Each friend takes a turn making a wish and crazy adventures follow. Whenever magic is concerned, it’s always important to keep in mind, “be careful what you wish for!” I thought it was a nice change of pace to read a magical story where the fate of mankind doesn’t hang in the balance…a kind of magic that makes a root beer float appear when you really need one!

In the story, the kids like the Edward Eager Half Magic series of books. These are real books that you can read too. In the Hal f Magic books, bored kids find a magic coin. The problem with the coin is you only get half your wish, so lots of crazy adventures happen. Author: Laurel Snyder

• Amazon Look Inside Any Which Wall
• Any Which Wall Downloadable eBook

If you like this one, you also might like The Penderwicks. There isn’t any magic in the Penderwick books but the kids have fun adventures anyway riding their bikes, exploring and doing the things kids do when there aren’t adults around…because if you aren’t out on your bike exploring with your friends, you’ll never find a magic coin or a magic brick wall!