Stuart Horten moves to a new town and finds out that his great-uncle was a magician, a performing magician who invented and sold magical illusions. But Teeny Tiny Tony Horten was also a real magician who disappeared one day and left a trail of clues for finding his magical workshop to the boy who was “the right sort of boy to have it.”

Everybody loves a treasure hunt with sequential clues to find a secret treasure. And lots of kids go through a magic phase in which they’re interested in learning to do magic tricks, card tricks, and slight of hand. (Some kids never grow out of that “phase” and they become grown-up magicians, I guess.) This book by British author Lissa Evans plays into both of those fascinations.

The book includes more than just magical illusions–there’s time travel magic and wishing-upon-a-threepence magic, too. Stuart meets and gets some help from his next-door neighbors, identical triplets named April, May, and June. There’s also a factory for the manufacture of magic tricks and a book of photographs that is part of the treasure hunt. And the book has a sequel: Horten’s Incredible Illusions: Magic, Mystery and Another Very Strange Adventure..I’m looking forward to adventuring along with Mr. Horten as he explores his inheritance from Great-Uncle Tony.