Published by HMH Books for Young Readers

Summary:  Amelia Jones has always dreamed of attending The Mystwick School of Musicraft where her late mother became a maestro.  Amelia is a flutist who has studied musicraft with some local teachers, but is ill-prepared for the big time and bungles her audition to the school.  She’s shocked a few weeks later when she gets an acceptance letter.  But when she arrives at Mystwick, she discovers the letter was an error–it was intended for a different Amelia Jones, a piano prodigy who died the previous summer under somewhat mysterious circumstances.  Our Amelia is about to be sent packing, when the teachers discover a nifty bit of magic she inadvertently performed on the school grounds.  They decide to give her two months to get her magic up to speed, at which time she’ll have to audition again to stay for good.  Amelia is determined to work hard, but when the ghost of the other Amelia Jones seems equally determined to see her fail, it becomes more and more difficult for her to believe that she really belongs at Mystwick.  368 pages; grades 4-7.

Pros:  Harry Potter fans will enjoy this fun tale of a school where kids learn to use their musical talents to do magic.  There are plenty of plot twists and supernatural events to keep kids turning the pages, and the end seems to make a sequel inevitable.  I enjoyed listening to the Audible version of this which is free, along with quite a few other books: check out their site for details.

Cons:  Granted, Amelia had plenty of reasons to doubt her talents, but I got tired of her constant “maybe I just don’t belong here” refrain.

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