Young Wizards

Because she insists on fighting with words instead of her fists, 13-year-old Nita is regularly tormented by a gang of classmates. One day, running to escape their blows, she hides in the only safe place nearby: the library. When a book about wizardry catches her eye, Nita finds the help she needs in its pages. As she moves from chapter to chapter, Nita learns more sophisticated spells. Soon, stepping through a worldgate, she enters a shadowy city swirling with vicious taxicabs and carnivorous fireplugs.

Even though she's on vacation at the beach, young wizard Nita is still on active duty, available to assist any other wizard in distress. So when Nita meets the wizard S'reee, she is bound to promise help. Nita is needed to face the Lone Power, who is threatening life in the oceans. But although S'reee is a wizard, she is also a whale. Nita will need to shapeshift into a sea creature to join her.

As young wizards, Nita and her friend, Kit, share magic spells and spectacular adventures. Twice, they have successfully thwarted a dark power called the Lone One. Each victory has protected the universe against its paralyzing force, for a while. But now Darine, Nita's 10-year-old sister, has found her wizard's manual. With the help of a laptop computer, Darine has not only absorbed the book's wisdom, she has become a powerful wizard herself.

Fourteen-year-old Nita is in Ireland, spending the summer with her aunt. As a young wizard, Nita is fascinated by the forces at work in this ancient land. Sometimes, the world seems to be shifting sideways into another dimension. Layers of history, rich with battles between superhuman tribes, lurk beneath the surface of every moment. When Nita discovers that her aunt is a wizard, too, Nita realizes that this summer will not be a vacation. Ireland truly is in danger: her past is breaking into the present.

Nita's best friend and wizard partner Kit has gone his own way, leaving Nita to practice magic on her own. In the midst of this sad goodbye, Nita's mother is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, seemingly untreatable by science or sorcery. Nita's greatest foe, the evil Lone Power, may be her only hope. Her mother's life hanging in the balance, Nita must now trust an arch-nemesis she's spent a lifetime fighting.

Best-selling author Diane Duane has created a book full of magical mystery, suspense, and humor that is sure to delight Harry Potter fans. When Nita and Kit, two teenage wizards, lose a young friend, Kit goes searching for him. Meanwhile, Nita is grappling with mysterious dreams and disturbing messages. Soon she fears that the Dark Power, source of all death, is threatening to return to the universe.

Rest and relaxation: that's what Nita thinks she's going to get when her little sister, Dairine, signs her up for a wizardly "cultural exchange" program, sending Nita and her partner-wizard Kit halfway across the galaxy over spring break. But nothing about wizardry, not even vacation, is ever quite that simple. Back home, Dairine and her dad have to cope with their side of the exchange.

Nita and Kit return from their wizardly holiday and are looking forward to getting back to their everyday routine. But there's trouble brewing. A strange darkness of the mind and heart is about to befall the older wizards of the world, stealing away their power. Soon the young wizards of Earth and many other planets find themselves forced to defend wizards and nonwizards alike against an invasion of a kind they've never imagined. But mere defense won't be enough to combat the evil afoot.

While young wizards Kit and Nita investigate the mystery of the Red Planet’s long-lost inhabitants, life suddenly emerges again to shake Mars with its own perilous and baffling brand of magic. Kit’s long-standing Martian fascination ensnares him in a terrible, age-old conflict—making him a key to its solution or a tool for destroying humans. As Nita searches for Kit, she soon finds herself battling an implacable foe.

Every 11 years, Earth's senior wizards hold the Invitational: an intensive three-week event where the planet's newest, sharpest young wizards show off their best and hottest spells. Wizardly partners Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan, and Nita's sister, former wizard-prodigy Dairine Callahan, are drafted in to mentor two brilliant and difficult cases.