Wizard's Hall

by Jane Yolen

Book, 1969

Status

Available

Call number

813.69

Genres

Fantasy

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Publisher Unknown (1969)

Description

A young apprentice wizard saves the wizard's training hall by trusting and believing in himself.

User reviews

LibraryThing member AnnieHidalgo

I read somewhere that Jane Yolen thinks JK Rowling ought to cut her a big fat royalty check for ripping off the plot of this book when she wrote the first Harry Potter. And it is true that there are similarities - boy named Henry (the 'real name', of which Harry is a shortened version), sent to

wizard school, only to find that he is an expected prodigy who will save the world. But it seems to me that if Rowling did use the book, it was as source material. You couldn't accuse TH White of ripping off Le Morte d'Arthur, could you? Despite the more highflown literary beginning in that example, I think this instance of novelistic borrowing was very much the same. Wizard's Hall, while not unengaging, is allegorical and slight. While it does finish off the main plot, it raises more questions than it answers on the whole. If neither Henry nor Thornmallow is the main character's 'true name', what is? What did happen to Henry's uncle - was he a wizard or a card player? The book, at 133 pages, could use more fleshing out. It lives you with a bad taste in your mouth - that Yolen was trying for the allegorical, the whimsical. It's one of those books that makes you think it was deliberate, this slightness. As if Yolen were trying to say, "It may not look like much from the outside, but it Means Something." I hate it when an author tries to be clever by forcing the reader to do their thinking for them. I wouldn't say you shouldn't read it. You could do worse. But you could do better. Ok, maybe I would say, if you are thinking about reading this book - "Don't do it. Put that down right now, and go and find something by Diana Wynne Jones. Similar feeling. Done with more care."

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LibraryThing member phoebesmum

A fairly humdrum fantasy, written, to be fair, for nine-year-olds. Lives will be none the poorer for giving this a miss. Also, the title should really be 'Wizards' Hall'. Well, it *should*!

LibraryThing member Prop2gether

Harry Potter this is not. And it's definitely not the best of Jane Yolen's writing either--the story features a boy wizard who goes to wizard school and ends up saving the day (mostly because he's too dense to be truly wizard material). Too short for the hints of plot, Yolen leapfrogs over

characterization and depth, and has a story in which the ending is far too predictable to be happily readable.

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LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing

An imaginative tale of on odd school for magic, in which the greatest power comes from understanding one's true nature.

LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

A rather fluffy little story, with a little bit of playing with story stereotypes but overall rather simple, even simplistic. I like the names thing; Dr Mo is...very convenient. Henry's "special magic" is weird, though admittedly it might be something that is known but not to first-year students.

Things flow along a bit too conveniently (including convenient overhearings); Henry never actually makes a choice or takes an action until practically the end, just follows various instructions. Cute, I'm glad I read it, I don't see any reason to ever reread.

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LibraryThing member livingtech

This was light and fun. Nothing super exciting, but endearing for what it is.

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