When is magic not magic? Laura is a girl who goes out of her way to find adventure. So when her family moves to a house with a well in the yard—a wishing well, according to Lydia, Laura’s opinionated new neighbor—Laura is all too willing to make a wish and see what happens. Plenty happens. Thanks to the well, Laura and her new friends help save Miss Isabella’s house from foreclosure, rescue the almost long-lost heir to a fortune, and even solve the mystery of the antique desk. But is the well truly granting wishes? Or is something else responsible for the adventures of that summer?

Edward Eager (1911–1964) worked primarily as a playwright and lyricist. It wasn’t until 1951, while searching for books to read to his young son, Fritz, that he began writing children’s stories. His classic Tales of Magic series started with the best-selling Half Magic, published in 1954. In each of his books he carefully acknowledges his indebtedness to E. Nesbit, whom he considered the best children’s writer of all time—“so that any child who likes my books and doesn’t know hers may be led back to the master of us all.”

“Lots of fun.”  —New York Times Book Review
 
“This latest book by the inventive and highly literate Mr. Eager is by all odds his best. The characters . . . are so alive they seem to step right out of the pages.”  —Chicago Tribune