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Miri and Molly 1

The Magic Half

by Annie Barrows
As a middle child stuck between two sets of twins, eleven-year-old Miri Gill feels an outsider until one day in her attic room, she slips back in time from the 21st century to 1935 where she meets Molly, another eleven-year-old who needs her help.

Also in need of some help is the model of time travel in the story, which is a mishmash of popular representations that no person at age eleven or elsewhen should be exposed to. Specifically, I would have enjoyed an attempt to square the Branching Timeline implied by the hole in floor with the single nonbranching, static timeline and Ex Nihilo paradox hinted at by the time-travel device. I truly liked that ex nihilo paradox, and wish it had been explicitly dealt with rather than swept under the carpet.

— Michael Main
If you think about it too long, you’re going to go crazy, and then I’ll never get to your time.
DEBUT
The Magic Half (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, January 2008).
VARIANTS
3 English variants
TRANSLATIONS
Translations to Turkish
TAGS(SPOILERS!)
Time Periods Time Travel Methods Themes
  • Alternate Histories: In the end, I believe that Miri and Molly magic have created a new world. Nothing they did in the past explicitly created this new universe, i.e., they didn’t make some change that logically led to the new world as a Branching Timeline; instead, it seems to have been created through their magic as an alternative history where they have always lived together. The story gives no indication of whether the original history continues with or without some different version of themselves, although presumably it must do so at least from 1935 until the time of Miri’s travel to the past.
  • Anachronistic Music, Dance, and Other Creations: The Deathbag CD.
  • Ex Nihilo Obects and People: Both halves of the eyeglasses appear to be ex nihilo objects, whose entire lives consist of being placed in a known spot in 1935, staying there until the 21st century, being found by Miri, being taken back to 1935, and being placed in their know spots. I don’t think they were ever Molly’s glasses to begin with, although that issue is only skirted in the book.
Groupings
TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)
  1. From the Gill family’s attic, circa 2013 ⋙ to the same attic, in 1935. Multiple round trips. Note: Miri makes two round trips, with Molly returning with her on the final leg. Around 2013 since the next book, about a year later, is explicitly dated 2014.
INDEXER NOTES (SPOILERS!)
  • A Time Travel Teaser! Just how did Horst get a comic book featuring Tarzan on the cover in July 1935? Tarzan had been around for some time by the 30s, but we haven’t spotted a Tarzan cover on a comic until the April 1936 release of <a href='https%3A%2F%2Fwww.comics.org%2Fissue%2F206017%2Fcover%2F4%2F'><em>Tip Top Comics</em> #1</a>. Maybe Horst was a time traveler, too.
  • A Time Travel Teaser! Celotape that survives intact for over seventy years? We want some of that up in the ITTDB Citadel.
  • Debut—The <samp>January 2008[d/] date of the first release is from the copyright page of the hardcover. </samp>
  • Audio Debut—The <samp>September 2014[d/] date comes from <a href='https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fbook%2Fshow%2F22245779-the-magic-half'>Goodreads</a> and the end of the audio CD.</samp>