Diane Duane was born in Manhattan. She was a good student throughout her childhood. Initially, she wanted to study astrophysics. However, she realized that calculus and maths was not for her, and hence decided to shift to nursing. She even won a scholarship in nursing. In the year 1974, she became a registered nurse. She then worked for 2 years in a New York City Hospital. Right from her childhood, she was fond of writing stories. When she showed her colleagues at the Hospital some of her works, they convinced her to become a full time writer.
Initially, she spent 1 year working as an assistant to David Gerrold, who is a well known science fiction writer. Then, she decided to publish her own works. ” The Door Into Fire” was her first novel and was a huge success. After that, she went on to write more than 50 novels, and lots of comics and short stories. Her ” Young Wizards” series is immensely popular.
Her writing skills also earned her several awards and recognition throughout her career. She appeared many times in the New York Bestsellers List. She also won awards from prominent organizations like New York Public Library.
” Young Wizards” series is the most popular series by Diane Duane. The first book of this series is ” So you want to be a Wizard”. Nita is the central character of the book. One day in school, she was being chased by her bullies. In order to escape them, she entered the library and found the book ” So you want to be a Wizard” in the shelves. However, she couldn’t escape from her bullies. They eventually found her and stole a space pen which her grandfather had gifted her. Later, on returning home, she opened the book. The book claimed that it will turn Nita into a wizard. Nita initially didn’t believe it, but took the Wizards Oath anyway.
After waking up the next day, she was surprised to find her name in the Wizards List in the book. She was practicing one of the spells from the book. During her practice, she met a fellow wizard named Kit. Initially, both of them were working on a spell to retrieve the pen from her bullies. Meanwhile, a “white hole” from space named ‘ Fred” also joined them. They came up with a spell where Fred will use gravitational force and sneak the pen quietly from the bullies. But unfortunately, he miscalculated the gravity and accidentally swallowed it. This made Fred hiccup different objects like television and even a Mercedes. In order to get rid of that problem, they were forced to visit the Grand Central Station, where the pen was eventually pulled out of Fred.
However, that wasn’t the end to their troubles. Fred actually came to Earth to inform them, that an important book was missing. If the book wasn’t found soon, then dangerous things can happen to Earth. In search of the book, they discovered a different side of Manhattan, full of people and machines who were trying to kill them. However, they were determined to fight against all the odds and rescue the book.
There is a tone of suspense and mystery throughout the book. Diane has managed to keep the readers hooked at all times. The plot is quite exciting and the young people reading the book will definitely love it. Even though it is mainly for kids, but adults will also like this book. The humor is really good and the friendship between Nita and Kit is a lesson to learn for all.
The second book of the series is named ” Deep Wizardry”. After their first adventure, Nita and Kit decided to take a holiday. Kit’s dog, Ponch also accompanied them. However, their holiday soon turned out to be another adventure. While swimming during night, they came across a dolphin named ” Hotshot”. Hotshot then carried them to a nearby beach. They found a whale wizard named S’reee, being attacked by a group of sharks. They somehow managed to rescue it. From S’reee, they learned that twelve whale wizards were forced to attain entropy by the Lone Power. Out of the twelve, some whales accepted it and some of them refused. However, there was one such whale who sacrificed its life. Because of the sacrifice, the Lone Shark was silent for a certain period of time. But unfortunately, time had run out once again. Unless they find 12 whales who is ready to accept entropy, all of their lives are in grave danger. Nita decided to help them. Both Nita and Kit was then transformed into whales with the help of S’reee.
The following day, Nita met Ed, who is a friend of S’reee. She was told by Ed, that she needs to sacrifice her life in order to protect them. Shocked by this, Nita was reluctant to help them. However, since so many lives were at stake, she eventually agreed. Since both Nita and Ed continuously sneaked out of their beach house in order to help the whales, their parents became suspicious. Nita eventually revealed to them that she is a wizard. However, she didn’t tell them, that her life was in danger. After that, they had to fight against large sharks and escape from volcanoes to protect the whales. Fortunately, both Nita and Kit managed to survive in the end.
This book is a perfect continuation to the series. Diane Duane made the audience go through a lot of emotions in this book. First, all of us were scared, when Nita decided to sacrifice her life in order to save others. At one point, it really looked like that she was going to die. However, we were all equally relieved when she managed to survive. Since you will be so eager to learn about Nita’s fate, you will definitely end up finishing the book in one day. We also saw the friendship between Nita and Kit growing stronger in this story. There were also some great action scenes involving sharks and volcanoes, which will definitely delight all the young readers. Most of the characters in this book are whales and all of them are extremely adorable. In short, this is a must read for all the fiction lovers.
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