Author: Patricia C. Wrede, Caroline Stevermer
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Copyright: 2003 (originally published 1988)
ISBN: 9780152046156
Reading Level/Interest Age: Grades 7-12
Genre: Fantasy--Magic and Wizards, Alternate Formats--Epistolary Novels
Reader’s Annotation: Cecelia is disappointed at being left in the country while her cousin Kate gets a London season, but events take an exciting turn for both when they become embroiled in a magical intrigue.
Plot Summary
The full title of this novel is Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country, which tells you about all you need to know. Cecelia and Kate are best friends and cousins. While Kate gets to go to London for the Season with her older sister Georgina, Cecelia is stuck at home in Essex with her father, brother, and stuffy Aunt Elizabeth. While they are apart they share news of all their doings, both exciting and mundane, in frequent letters.
The beautiful Georgina is expected to “take the town by storm,” though she is not-so-secretly in love with Cecelia’s older brother Oliver. Kate is not as striking as Georgina, and is a bit clumsy to boot. But she soon finds an eligible suitor by unconventional means. At the installation of the girls’ Essex neighbor in the Royal College of Wizards, she saves Thomas, Marquis of Schofield from poisoning.
Meanwhile, Cecelia is also making good use of her time by investigating untoward magical goings-on. Charms have appeared in her house, so Cecelia decides to make some protective ones of her own discovering along the way that she has quite an aptitude for magic. Also, James Tartleton (son of a local family and friend of Kate’s marquis) is spying on her for reasons unknown. The mystery deepens as the girls share their discoveries in letters that sometimes arrive a little too late.
Critical Evaluation
While several reviewers have called this book a cross between Harry Potter and Jane Austen, a more apt comparison is with Susanna Clarke and Georgette Heyer. As in Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, the magic here is an accepted part of life in British upper-class society, not underground as it is in Harry Potter. And though Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer are fairly similar, Heyer’s books tend to be lighter and funnier. Stevermer and Wrede’s vocabulary, syntax, and tone owe much to Heyer’s (as they acknowledge).
In any case, the combination is delightful. Kate and Cecelia are curious, intrepid heroines and entertaining writers. In her first letter Cecelia writes, “Not that we are without amusement in Essex; quite the contrary! Aunt Elizabeth and I called at the vicarage yesterday and spent a stimulating afternoon listening to the Reverend Fitzwilliam discoursing on the Vanities of Society and the Emptiness of Worldly Pleasures. Aunt Elizabeth hung on every word, and we are to return and take tea on Thursday. I am determined to have the headache Thursday, if I have to hit myself with a rock to do it.” The epistolary form feels natural, as Wrede and Stevermer actually wrote the book that way—by sending letter written in character back and forth, without consulting each other about where the story was going. Though this resulted in the plot getting a bit frenetic and some loose ends not getting tied up as neatly as they could have been, the final product is still well worth reading.
Curriculum Ties: History--Regency period
Booktalking Ideas: Read excerpts from the first few letters.
Challenge Issues: Occult content
In the defense file, I will include my library's selection policy, ALA's Library Bill of Rights, ALA's guidelines on free access to libraries for minors (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/freeaccesslibraries.cfm), and ALA's strategies and tips for dealing with challenges to library materials (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/copingwithchallenges/strategiestips/index.cfm). I will also include my library's reconsideration form, in case challenges to this book cannot be defused with "tea and sympathy." I'll include positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and VOYA.
About the Authors
(WREDE)
I was born on March 27, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois. I am the eldest of five siblings
(four girls and one boy). Currently, I have four nephews and four nieces living in
Alabama, Maine, and Illinois.
Everyone in my family is a voracious reader, and I grew up surrounded by books
(pretty much literally--we had bookshelves on nearly every flat wall in the house,
and there were books in the back of the linen cupboard, books in the bathroom
storage shelves behind the cleaning supplies and towels, and books in all the
closets). Among my favorites were the Oz books (I have over thirty of them), the
Narnia Chronicles, and a long list of collections of fairy tales and myths.
I graduated from high school in 1970 and attended Carleton College in Minnesota,
where I earned an A.B. in Biology in 1974. Then I moved up the road to
Minneapolis/St. Paul and worked in clerical jobs for a year before returning to school
at the University of Minnesota for my M.B.A.
I married James M. Wrede in 1976, got my M.B.A. in 1977, and started working as a
financial analyst while writing in my spare time. I sold my first novel, Shadow Magic,
in 1980 (it was published two years later, in 1982). In the same year, I became a
founding member of the Interstate Writers' Workshop, aka the Scribblies, to which I
belonged for five extremely productive years.
By 1985, I was having increasing difficulty in balancing a full-time job in finance with
full-time writing. Something had to give, and with a lot of support from my friends
and family, I chose to quit my day job and write.
Since then, I have made my living as a fiction writer. Jim and I divorced in 1991; I
have no children. I still live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities with my two cats,
currently Cazaril (a Maine Coon/tabby mix) and Nimue (an elderly medium-hair of
uncertain parentage).
http://www.pcwrede.com/AboutPat.html
(STEVERMER)
Caroline Stevermer (born 1955) is a writer of young adult fantasy novels and shorter works. She is best known for two series of historical fantasy novels.
With Patricia C. Wrede, she wrote three novels set in an alternate Regency England where magic and non-magic society exist side-by-side and cooperatively.
The authors tell these stories from the first-person perspectives of cousins Kate and Cecelia (and, in the third book, two additional characters), who recount their adventures in magic and polite society. These works are unusual in modern fiction in being epistolary novels, written using the style of the letter game.
Her Galazon series comprise a Ruritanian romance series with magic: A College of Magics (1994) and its semi-sequel A Scholar of Magics (2004), as well as When the King Comes Home (2000), a medieval prequel. Caroline Stevermer attended Bryn Mawr College, and Greenlaw, the College in A College of Magics, may be based on her experiences there. Terri Windling selected College as one of the best fantasy books of 1994, describing it as "charmingly distinctive . . . [marked by] the sly wit and sparkling prose that have earned her a cult following".
Her 1992 novel River Rats, a Minnesota Book Awards finalist, is a post-apocalyptic adventure on the Mississippi River with echoes of Mark Twain.
Her first novel written as Caroline Stevermer is a 1988 fantasy called The Serpent's Egg. She has two previous books written as C.J. Stevermer: The Alchemist: Death of a Borgia (1980) and The Duke and the Veil (1981), both published by Ace. These feature an English alchemist in the Rome at the time of the House of Borgia.
She has participated in Terri Windling's Borderlands shared universe and in the Liavek shared universe.
In 2008, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Stevermer
Why is this title included?
Its unusual form and blend of genres make this novel unique and ensure that it will appeal to a broad range of readers. Its best-of recognitions include the Children's Literature Choice List, 2004 and YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2004.