Stolen Magic

by Stephanie Burgis

Grade: 4 stars
Story summary: The Stephenson family is preparing for Angeline's wedding, and Angeline's new in-laws are doing everything they can to politely make things very unpleasant for her. Fortunately for us, she has a little sister named Kat, and Kat's plans to help her family always turn into mayhem, adventure, and lots of (illegal) magic.
Sequel to Kat, Incorrigible and Renegade Magic.

Thoughts: Yay! So fun! Kat is just... brilliant. I would love it if Burgis continued writing about her; she's one of those people that things just happen around. She's actually reminding me slightly, in that way, of Miles Vorkosigan, whose exploits and adventures I am reading right now and loving. They both come into situations which for normal people would simply end up mildly unpleasant. But somehow when they are there, the only thing that seems to be a possible solution is something completely audacious, involving disguise, manipulation, and great cleverness.

Her brother Charles also played a much more significant role in this book, which I was quite happy about. I always love it when all the individual members of a fictional family get enough time and attention to be interesting. (One of my favourite things about the Harry Potter series is how awesome the families and more minor characters are.) I'd felt a lack of him in the first two books, as he mostly just lay around all day and slept. Now, he's sort of pulled his life together, and like all people who have the misfortune of being close to Kat, is hurled into adventures he doesn't want to be a part of.

If I had a Top Ten (Or So) list of Clever and Audacious Characters, Kat would definitely be on it. I sincerely hope I some day get to read about her further adventures as she grows up--because one such as her could obviously not have a calm and normal life for long.