The Real Boy

National Book Award Longlist * Bank Street Children's Book Committee Best Book of the Year

"Beautifully written and elegantly structured, this fantasy is as real as it gets."—Franny Billingsley, author of Chime

The Real Boy, Anne Ursu's follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.

On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master's shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar's world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.

But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now even magic may not be enough to save it.

• Shy Hero: Oscar prefers the quiet of his cellar and the company of cats to the unpredictable outside world. But when danger threatens his home, he might be the only one who can face it.
• Magical Mystery: When the children of the shining city fall ill with an incurable sickness, Oscar must venture from his solitude to find the source of the dark magic behind it.
• The Power of Friendship: Forced to work with Callie, a clever apprentice, Oscar discovers he doesn't have to face the island's secrets alone.
• Secrets and Lies: The magical history of the island isn't what it seems, and uncovering the truth about the wizards of old could be the most dangerous quest of all.