Magic in the Mix

asma234 - Miri and Molly live in a family of 8.Three sets of twins (including Miri and Molly),and a dad and a mom.The Gill family,but there wasn't always 3 sets of twins.There was just Robbie and Ray,Nell and Nora,and Miri who was the middle child without a twin.One day magic happened to Miri and she went back in time,and rescued Molly from her mean 1935 family.Things have been going good for the two girls Miri and Molly.Everyone thought they where twins sense day 1 and no one thought differently,but one day while there playing with there camera there grandma gave them and there new kitten.The house that is being fixed up (or porch) takes them back in time,all the way back to 1918.The magic only takes them back in time to fix things.When they arrive there they meet a 17 year old girl who Molly acts really rude towards the girl. Miri's never seen Molly act so rude so she has to step up and be nice to the girl to cover for Moll's rudeness.Afterwards when they leave Miri begs Molly to tell her why she was acting so rude (which is unlikely of Molly),and Molly tells her.Is this seventeen year old girl the reason the magic took them back in time?Will Miri stay with this girl if she doesn't die?Will everything change after meeting her?I'll let you be the judge of those questions ;).Also I strongly recommend this book to anyone.It's very interesting,fun,and it's filled with mystery's that will have you questioning many things.

August 1, 2014
The time-traveling adventures of Molly and Miri Gill continue, with even higher stakes. Molly and Miri are the only members of their family who know Molly was not always Miri's twin. In The Magic Half (2008), Miri saved Molly from a life of abuse in 1935, bringing Molly to Miri's own time and family, where, according to Molly's magically knowledgeable grandmother, she was supposed to be born. Now both Molly and Miri possess double sets of memories: Each remembers her life before they were twins as well as her life as a twin. This bothers Molly, and when their magic house sends them back to 1918, she is sure it is to prevent her birth mother from having her-thereby preventing her mother's death-but they are returned to the present abruptly. When they try to go back to 1918, they end up in the American Civil War, and when their twin brothers later unwittingly travel through time-in Civil War re-enactment dress, no less-and are taken prisoner, it will take the girls' combined wit, courage and cleverness to save their brothers from certain death and use magic to "[set] things right." Barrows examines many of the previously unanswered, difficult questions of time travel but does not answer all mysteries, paving the way for a possible third book.If another adventure is to come, readers will hope it won't take another six years to arrive. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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June 1, 2014

Gr 3-6-Time travel is tricky. Barrows, though, proves she knows the way around the paradoxes that can stymie science fiction writers. In this companion to The Magic Half (Bloomsbury, 2009), everything happens for a reason and in the right order. Readers will be happy with the Gill family's return, complete with its unique sets of twins, the magic house, and its time portals in this sequel that has double the adventure and four times the excitement. In the first book, Miri Gill accidentally traveled back to 1935 and rescued Molly from an abusive extended family. Now living as Miri's twin-with history (at least in their time line) rewritten-Molly fears that perhaps she wasn't supposed to have this happy life and should go back in time to stop her parents from meeting. With some present-day remodeling going on, though, their house has new portals opening up unexpectedly. The girls do travel back to find Molly's mother in 1918 and, in a fateful move through a different portal, to the 1860s and the Civil War with their older brothers stumbling back, too, as Union soldiers in Confederate territory. The plot is fast paced and thrilling until the very end. Some pieces of unfinished business-and a time-traveling cat-will have fans hoping this isn't the last trip with the Gill family.-Marie Drucker, Malverne Public Library, NY

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