Children's Author Christine Norris

 Wizard Academies is a collaborative effort involving a number of authors from around the world. Some books are anthologies of short stories, while others are full-length booksall young adult fantasies about magickally-gifted youngsters training to be the "Wizards of Tomorrow."

While the Wizard Academies stories will appeal to the same audience as Harry Potter, all of the characters and settings are unique and original. Many of the stories incorporate traditional English folk and faery lore.

Wizard Academies Fan Site
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BOOKS

Wizard Academies I: A Gathering of Enchantment
ISBN: 1-411677-87-0  
Wizard Academies, LLC
364 pages @ $24.96

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 BE TRUE to your Academy -- Your Wizard's Academy !! There are great universities of magick with hundreds of student wizards, small private schools with just a few juvenile mages, haunted academies, and even special institutions for young wizards in trouble.

Wizard Academies I - A Gathering of Enchantment is a collection of stories about magickally-gifted youngsters training to be the Wizards of Tomorrow. Their problems are perhaps a bit unique: * Where do they send students who get expelled from a wizard academy? * Why is Grendel stalking the halls of my school? * How do you muck out the monster cages in the school zoo? THE ANSWERS to these questions are found in this delightful assortment of wizardling adventures. See what happens when kids, schools, monsters, and a few scoundrels and rascals are brought together in this first book in a new anthology series of magickal fiction featuring Wizard Academies.

Wizard Academies III: Crossroads of Magic
ISBN:978-0-6151-8712-9
Wizard Academies, LLC
310 pages @ $24.95

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WIZARD ACADEMIES III: Crossroads of Magick is the third book of stories about magickally-gifted youngsters training to be the Wizards of Tomorrow. The problems they face are challenging, to say the least:

* Who (or what) is Olof Narr?
* Why did my cat suddenly start talking?
* What is a Spagpie?
* How do I cast a spell when the Wild Hunt is after me?

THE ANSWERS to these and other questions are found in this delightful assortment of wizardling adventures.
Award-winning authors from around the world have contributed their best tales of magickal fiction.

* The dangers are unworldly.
* The young heroes are plucky.
* The professors are sorcerous.
* The villains are the least of our worries ...

YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE WORLD OF MAGICK.

See what happens when the world wide ley network runs amok in this third enchanting book of the Wizard Academies series.

 From "Careful What You Wish For", found in Wizard Academies I: A Gathering of Enchantment

Penny picked up the last of her white uniform shirts, neatly folded into wrinkle-free rectangles, and tucked them into the bottom of her trunk next to a collection of pleated, dark blue skirts, ties and two pair of well polished loafers. Ready for another school year. She sighed, looked at the pile of things still waiting to be packed, and wished that she could just wave her wand, which sat on the top of her dresser, and be done with it all in an instant.

Penny Miller was a witch. She discovered this fact at the age of five, when on a class field trip to the London Zoo, she inadvertently caused her kindergarten teacher to disappear from the sidewalk and reappear inside the elephant cage. After a nervous breakdown, several rounds of medication, and a good deal of memory dust, the teacher quit for a more relaxing position as an air traffic controller.

Penny came from a long line of witches and wizards that stretched backward to Medieval Era Britain, something her mother never let her forget.

“You have a responsibility to this family to continue its traditions,” Penny’s mother said on the day her acceptance letter to Kingsbridge came, after Penny voiced her objection to attending the prestigious academy.

“I went there,” her mother went on, “as did your grandmother, as did her grandmother, as did ...”

“Yes, yes, her mother before her,” Penny had said. “I remember. I just don’t want to leave all my friends to go to some stuffy boarding school. There’s a perfectly good public school down the road — why can’t I go there?”

You would have thought Penny had said she wanted to run off and join the circus. Her mother’s face had gone red, her lips white. “You are going to the Academy, and that’s that.”

Now, getting ready for her second year, Penny looked over her things scattered around her room, shook her head and pushed the thought of using magick out of her mind. Students at Kingsbridge Academy, where Penny went to school, were not allowed to practice magick outside of its walls. At least, not until their sixteenth birthday. She took three long robes out of the closet, folded them in haphazard fashion, and stuffed them into the trunk as well.

It hadn’t been so bad. The school was full of children just like her; she didn’t have to hide her magick and even gained some control. During her first year, she had done well in her classes, made friends, and even managed to pass all her exams. Penny really looked forward to going back.

She just hated packing.

“Aren’t you finished yet?” Her mother’s voice called up the stairs. “The car will be around any minute to collect you.”

Penny rolled her eyes. Her mother was always so dramatic about everything.

She looked at the clock on her nightstand. There was plenty of time.

“I’ll be right down.” She picked up the stack of schoolbooks, her small cauldron, and various quills, inkpots and bits of parchment and threw them on top of her clothes. Her wand she lay on top; then pushed on the lid, trying to make it close so she could latch it. A large, dark gray cat jumped on top of the trunk.

“Nicodemus!” Penny shrieked, jumping straight up in the air. “I don’t need your help, thank you.”

She stroked the animal on his head and tossed him off the trunk. “I hope you’re ready to go, too,” she called after the cat as his tail disappeared out into the hall.

The trunk finally cooperated, and Penny gathered her coat, trunk, and Nicodemus’ carrier and trundled down the stairs. Her mother waited at the bottom; she stood by the front door, wringing her hands. “Hurry up, the car’s coming down the lane,” she said.

“Okay, okay, Mom, take it easy.” Penny set her trunk by the door and called Nicodemus. The cat came running, right into the carrier. Penny shut the cage’s door and pulled on her coat just as a long dark blue limousine with the Kingsbridge coat-of-arms on the door snaked up in front of her house and stopped. A tall man in a chauffeur’s uniform stepped out to help load Pennys luggage.

“ ‘Bye Mom,” Penny said. She kissed her mother on the cheek. “See you at Christmas.”

Her mother pulled Penny into a bone-crushing hug. “Be good, dear, and write to me soon.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Oh, don’t forget your broomstick!”

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