Kylie the Magnificent

When Kylie tries out for her school’s magic show, the show’s director, Peter, isn’t very impressed with her act—he seems to think girls should be magician’s assistants, not actual magicians. 

Kylie teams up with her best friend Min, a very talented young magician himself, to put on an escape act that will blow Peter away—and prove that Kylie absolutely has what it takes to be a magician! Unfortunately, Kylie just can’t seem to get the trick quite right and Min has a lot of trouble with his script while Kylie is ‘escaping’. After a few failed practices, the pair decide it’d be best to swap their roles and have Min do the escape while Kylie entertains the crowd—a strategy that is met with roaring approval! 

There’s just one problem…Kylie gets a little too carried away in her performance and upsets Min quite badly by portraying him in a hurtful way. Thankfully, the friends are reconciled when Kylie realises that she was too focused on her moment in the spotlight, and together she and Min put on an act that steals the magic show—and proves to Peter, and everyone else, that being a girl doesn’t mean you’re just the ‘lovely assistant’.

A fun and engaging story about friendship, playing to your strengths, and just a hint of magic. Kylie’s development over the course of the story is well defined, and her realisation that her ambition to have a moment in the spotlight was hurting her friendship with Min is an important lesson for younger readers. 

The story also nicely covers ideas about implicit gender biases that still exist in the world today, and does a wonderful job of highlighting just how ridiculous these biases are.

Magic, magicians, magic tricks, friendship, sexism, working together, playing to your strengths

Not applicable.