Kingston and the Magician's Lost and Found

by Rucker Moses, Theo Gangi Narrated by Sullivan Jones

Overview

Magic has all but disappeared in Brooklyn, but one tenacious young magician is determined to bring it back in this exciting middle grade mystery.

Twelve-year-old Kingston has just moved from the suburbs back to Echo City, Brooklyn-the last place his father was seen alive. Kingston's father was King Preston, one of the world's greatest magicians. Until one trick went wrong and he disappeared. Now that Kingston is back in Echo City, he's determined to find his father.

Somehow, though, when his father disappeared, he took all of Echo City's magic with him. Now Echo City-a ghost of its past-is living up to its name. With no magic left, the magicians have packed up and left town and those who've stayed behind don't look too kindly on any who reminds them of what they once had.

When Kingston finds a magic box his father left behind as a clue, Kingston knows there's more to his father's disappearance than meets the eye. He'll have to keep it a secret-that is, until he can restore magic to Echo City. With his cousin Veronica and childhood friend Too Tall Eddie, Kingston works to solve the clues, but one wrong move and his father might not be the only one who goes missing.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/01/2021

Kingston James, 12, has just moved back to his father’s childhood home in Echo City, Brooklyn, after Pop’s strange disappearance four years ago during a magic show gone wrong. Renovating their old three-story brownstone while fearing bank foreclosure, King’s mother plans to convert the ground floor into a café, clearing out the magic shop run by King’s paternal uncles. Settling into the neighborhood, King reconnects with his no-nonsense cousin Veronica and childhood friend Too Tall. The trio soon finds themselves at the Mercury Theater, where the storied magic show occurred, searching for clues that King’s father may have left. Inside, they discover a mysterious box that causes King’s hand to disappear—lost in the Realm, just like his father. But a menacing group of gray-skinned kids is also after the “Lost and Found” box, thus setting off a chain of events wherein King learns that every use of magic leaks through into reality, and that he’s accidentally opened a rift to the Realm, which will destroy any hope of saving his father. Moses and Gangi have successfully conjured a fast-paced, magical read set in an accessible, vibrant world where Black magicians and a mainly Black cast take center stage. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jane Startz, Jane Startz Productions. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Kingston and the Magician's Lost and Found:
A 2022-2023 Camellia Children’s Choice Book Award Nominee (AL)

★ “A fast-paced, magical read set in an accessible, vibrant world where Black magicians and a mainly Black cast take center stage.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Intricately crafted twists at every turn keep the determined crew on their toes. The action is well paced, giving readers time to savor the myriad colorful characters who interact with the clue chasers. . . An enjoyable addition to most middle school mystery collections.” —School Library Journal

“Full of heart, magic, and mystery, this is the kind of book that makes you love books. Absolutely fantastic!” —Sarah Beth Durst, award-winning author of Catalyst

"Coded messages, characters who plainly know more than they're saying, doppelgangers, and secret schemes...all come together in a...breathlessly paced tale...should leave readers even more delighted that the stage is set for sequels." —Booklist

“Inventive, authentic, and razor-sharp, Kingston and the Magician’s Lost and Found is at once an exhilarating fantasy and a moving tale of how far a father and son are willing to go for one another. Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi put aside familiar tropes to build something new, an underground New York City, filled with magic and secrets, that challenges readers to solve its mysteries alongside its main character. As for Kingston, we’ve never seen anything like him—a young Black superhero determined to put the magic back in Brooklyn. He’s sharp, feisty, funny, and always a step ahead. This is a special book, the kind that you fall in love with, because beneath the fun and twists, shining through is Kingston’s big, bold heart.” —Soman Chainani, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good and Evil series

"This brisk first-person narrative will appeal especially to readers who like puzzles and illusions… engaging plot and history of Black magician....A likable, otherworldly adventure with a bit of a mystery." —Kirkus Reviews

“The text is zippy and animated, reading more like a screenplay than a novel, and the secondary characters are splashy . . . Kingston is a carefully balanced mix of optimistic, jaded, and grief-stricken, moving through the world with more hope than the grownups who surround him.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

School Library Journal

01/01/2021

Gr 5–7—Twelve-year-old Black boy Kingston James realizes he is reckoning with the spirits of his shattered family's former life when he spies the word magik scribbled underneath a stop sign. He and his mom are venturing back to Echo City, Brooklyn, after a four-year hiatus. Their escape from the family home coincided with the shocking and untimely disappearance of Kingston's dad, who was a well-known magician. One night, his dad entered a magic mirror while on stage at the Mercury Theater, never to be seen again. Now that they're back, it isn't long before Kingston finds himself up to his eyeballs in the mystery of his dad's disappearance. He brings along trusty sidekicks: his cousin Veronica and friend Too Tall. Intricately crafted twists at every turn keep the determined crew on their toes. The action is well paced, giving readers time to savor the myriad colorful characters who interact with the clue chasers. The rekindled friendship among Kingston, Veronica, and Too Tall is authentic, even when they make some missteps on the path to solving the crime. Readers will want to continue learning about Kingston and his friends in future installments. VERDICT An enjoyable addition to most middle school mystery collections. Come along for the ride (if you dare) as these determined sleuths discover portals, meet false realm characters, and puzzle over long-hidden clues on the path to finding the truth behind a gifted magician's untimely disappearance.—Julie Shatterly, W. A. Bess Elem. Sch., Gastonia, NC

Kirkus Reviews

2020-08-18
A 12-year-old boy goes on a wild journey across realms to save his long-lost father.

Kingston James and his Ma left Echo City, Brooklyn, four years ago when his magician father, King Preston the Great, disappeared into a magic mirror during a duel at the Mercury Theater. Now they’re back to save their brownstone from imminent foreclosure. King takes a break from packing up the family’s magic shop and—along with his cousin Veronica and friend Too Tall—discovers several cryptic messages at the Mercury. Using a secret cipher his father taught him, he decrypts them, working under the assumption that his father is guiding him. He finds a mysterious, carved, wooden box—the Lost and Found—setting him on an adventure to unlock secrets of the Realm. Soon King finds out that he has accidentally opened a portal into the Realm, triggering a countdown before his father fades away into nothing. Time is quickly running out, and blinded by hopes of rescuing his father, King puts his loved ones in jeopardy; now he’s the only one that can save them. This brisk, first-person narrative will appeal especially to readers who like puzzles and illusions. The engaging plot and history of Black magicians make up for the stilted dialogue. King and the majority of other characters are Black.

A likable, otherworldly adventure with a bit of a mystery. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177709239
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/16/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

My father was famous. He was the greatest magician in Echo City. And he made himself disappear.

Disappear. Like, here one second, gone the next.

Not disappear like he went out for milk and eggs and never came back, like the bullies at school used to say. He wasn't abducted by aliens or kidnapped by the mob. He doesn't have another family and he isn't dead.

He's alive. I know he is. No one else thinks so, but I know.

Ma says not to sit around waiting for him. That I'll just be disappointed. She's afraid I'll be like him, that I'll get lost in magic and she'll lose me like she lost him. I promise her I won't get lost. Sometimes she believes me.

Sometimes I mean it.

It’s been four years, six months, and seven days since he’s been gone. I was eight years old then. That’s also four years and five months since we left Brooklyn, and today we’re moving back to Pop’s old home in Echo City, Brooklyn. Ma says the James Family Brownstone, aka 52 Ricks Street, will go back to the bank if we don’t. She taught me a nasty-sounding word, foreclosure. It’s like closed but times four and with a ure at the end in case you didn’t know that the word meant business. Ma says it means banks take your house when you run out of money. So now she wants to open up a café, which is her lifelong dream.

But she’s still nervous about moving. She doesn’t say so, only I can tell by how she’s driving. Inching along the hot summer streets and peeking at signs like a cat. Sighing at every red light. Squinting out the window at the street corners and row houses. She keeps tapping angry fingers at Google Maps on her phone screen. She thinks she knows Brooklyn, but it’s been a while.

“I don’t understand,” she says, frustrated. “This thing has us jumping all over the streets.”

Ma pulls the car over and flicks on the hazard lights of our rental SUV. She takes the phone off the dash mount, fingernails clicking on the screen as she stares with photon-beam focus. Mom believes in the power of apps and phone maps to get us places. The one thing she isn’t doing is looking out the windows. But that’s okay, I’m looking out for the both of us.

“How did our blue dot just land us in the middle of the Brooklyn Navy Yard?” she says. “Does it look like we’re in the middle of the Navy Yard? Oh, wait now . . . now we’re in the East River? We are literally in a body of water?”

I’m waiting for the car horns to start blaring at us, like they usually do when we stop and check directions, but there’s no one around at all. It’s like we found this one abandoned block in Brooklyn. I see a stop sign. There’s a word scribbled underneath.

MAGIK

It makes me smile. Brooklyn and magic have always gone together for me. When we lived here with Dad, our lives were full of magic. Tricks, shows, and convos about the all-time great magicians filled our home back then. Before Dad"disappeared"and we left Brooklyn, and magic along with it. And Ma got so sick and tired of magic she didn’t even want to hear about it anymore.

Then I realize the word magik is under the stop sign for a reason. It’s a message.

STOP
MAGIK

“Well. Would you look at that,” says Mom.

“Yeah. I know. ‘Stop magik’ sounds like good advice to you, right?”

Mom looks at me like she has no idea what I’m talking about.

“No—well, sure, I guess, but King, look—”

Before she can point her finger, I see it. Looming right there above us like an elephant on the sidewalk.

The Mercury Theater.

We’re quiet for a moment. I’m not sure how Mom will react.

I don’t even know how I’m reacting, honestly.

Most times, when you visit a place you haven’t seen in years, it seems small. Not the Mercury. And for sure I’ve grown a ton since I was here. But somehow the old theater is as huge as it ever was. It’s like the dinosaur of buildings. Bigger than everything around it, and from another time.

Mom takes a deep breath and I hear her tremble on the exhale. My heartbeat is jacked up quick like I just hit the fast-forward button a couple times. I remember how sad she was, back when Pop never came home that first night. When she filled out the missing person report. How we held each other and cried.

I wonder if she’s going to hit the gas and drive off, like she did the day we left Echo City. Like when she stashed all the pictures of Pops and his magic shows in a box down in the basement. I wonder if she’s going to make a comment that cuts about magic and fools and leaving things in the past.

But she doesn’t do any of that.

She opens her door and just stands there in the heat. Taking it in.

I hop out of the car and stand next to her. She doesn’t look away from the theater, but her hand finds my shoulder.

There’s a hole in the dome of the theater, with pigeons flying in and out. There are carvings of vines and grapes all up and down the columns and in patterns surrounding the windows, elaborate, with carved birds here and there fluttering at the stems. There are two gargoyles with mouths open and fangs tilted to the sky at the foot of the dome, like they’re trying to shout to the world about the fire. Even now, all these years later, you can see the charred marks of that blaze.

To look at the marquee, you might think the theater was just down for a week between shows. Random letters are scattered around like they’re waiting to be reassembled and make sense. But look at the glass front doors and those rusty chains, and you know that the shows, the crowds, the magic are all a distant memory. The ticket booth is boarded up with cheap plywood that couldn’t even keep out the rain. The underside of the marquee is lined with busted-out light bulbs with shards like the stalactites of a cave.

Ma takes my hand. Crazy how many things she can say with a touch—things like, I miss him, too, We’re going to be okay, and I love you and You still better not be thinking about doing magic.

But she doesn’t say a word. And believe me, Ma can talk when she wants to.

We just stand there, holding hands, at the last place in this world anyone ever saw my father alive.

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