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“Based on a true World War II story, Isaiah Campbell tells a charming mystery about a mishap at a magic show at a POW camp—featuring magic how-to diagrams throughout.
Try as she might, cheeky middle schooler Maxine Larousse (you may call her Max “La Roo” or The Amazing Max, if you’d like) has yet to learn the one magic trick she needs the most: how to reappear in New York City. That is where she used to live with her parents before her father, Major Larousse, was put in charge of a Nazi POW camp in Abilene, Texas. At least in this desolate wasteland she’ll have plenty of time to practice her illusions, even if the only audience member is her ferret Houdini.
When she’s tasked with entertaining the Nazi prisoners with a magic show, the pressure may be too much. But with the help of some classmates and an unexpected magic expert, the performance is a hit—until twelve Nazis escape during her final act. Will she be able to track them down before her reputation as a magician is destroyed forever?”
I got this book in an attempt to read an author with the same name as me for a reading challenge. This was one of the few options my library had for books written by an Isaiah or with an Isaiah main character. So I thought this would be a better fit than some sports biographies.
This book follows Max and she navigates moving to a new town, being a ferret owner, and being a young magician. Her father is a major, though is branch of military is not mentioned. He is in charge of running the POW camp in Texas, which is why they moved from New York City. They are Jewish, but that is only mentioned randomly. Max also speaks German, which is only mentioned when it is convenient for the plot, but not when characters are speaking German. German is not translated at all, but supposedly Max speaks German so would have translated it as the narrator. Max is also wonderfully racist, which is to be expected in the time period and the setting.
So Max visits her father in the POW camp all the time, which totally sounds like a good idea to have a child running around a POW camp unsupervised. Her dad sets up a magic show for the Nazis that are being housed there. Max runs into a group of super nasty Nazis. They even have a special arm band they wear, which is a mark of pride. How did they sneak these into a POW camp and keep them hidden from the guards while parading around in them? No one will ever know. They threaten to kill her, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is she is able to escape from being held captive in one of their bunks with the help of her Asian friend (who she is super racist against, but then she has a crush on him by the end WTF?) and the help of her friendly Nazi friend (who is also wearing the arm band of the super bad Nazis). The rest of the book is Max and her group of “friends” (people she tolerates to get even with three bitchy girls) preparing for the magic show and dealing with the aftermath.
This paragraph is all spoilers: The aftermath being the friendly Nazi uses Max’s show as a distraction to help 12 Nazis escape. She then trusts him AGAIN because he promises to help her capture all the escaped Nazis in exchange for a telephone call. In the end Max is kidnapped by the leader of the super bad Nazis and is held captive by the friendly Nazi at gunpoint, which for some reason Max is convinced is not loaded despite you know the obvious reasons of him being part of the super bad Nazis, helping Nazis escape, and lying to her all the time. She fits the “too dumb to live” trope and it was so annoying. Add in that the friendly Nazi that literally held her at gunpoint and helped people escaped was aided by the military to assume the identity of a member of the US Armed Forces at the end was just ridiculous.
The book just ended up reading as a racist book that was somehow halfheartedly pro-Nazi. The characters kept making jokes and using Nazi Lover or things like that as insults, but then kept referring to how nice the Nazis were and how they weren’t really bad, just part of the opposing Army. I’m just going to ignore the devil worshiping jew plot line.
1 out of 5 stars. I wouldn’t recommend this book.
You can buy the book here.
~Isaiah
MI Book Reviews 