Tips for Magicians

Harrison Boone once sang onstage, the son of a celebrated opera singer. Since her sudden death the previous year, he has gone silent and turned to card tricks and sleight of hand to get through each day. When his father takes a job elsewhere and sends Harrison to stay with Aunt Maggie in Muse, an arts colony in the Utah desert, he feels even more lost. Muse is said to be watched over by a magical muse that once granted a wish to whoever won the town's yearly art competition, but no one has seen it in years.

Harrison arrives with no interest in painting or performing, yet he soon teams up with a few new friends and a scruffy stray dog to search for the missing muse. Their hunt pushes him to face the creative side he has been avoiding. The question at the center of the story is whether he can find the muse and claim the wish that might return his old life to him.

Written in a lyrical, hopeful voice, this middle-grade novel is about loss, friendship, and finding a way back to art. Its desert setting and small-town cast give it a warm, quiet feel.