"Eight-year-old aspiring magician Oliver and his rabbit sidekick Benny must solve a mysterious robbery to save their act"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Hired as the entertainment for a classmate's birthday party, eight-year-old aspiring magician Oliver and his rabbit sidekick Benny must solve a mystery when one of the presents goes missing and Oliver is blamed. - (Baker & Taylor)

Dreaming of becoming a professional magician in spite of his stage fright, 8-year-old Oliver is invited to provide the entertainment at a classmate's birthday party and successfully prepares with the help of a wisecracking rabbit before being wrongly accused of stealing. By the best-selling author of the Secret Series. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

From the author of the bestselling Secret Series comes this funny chapter-book mystery about a third-grade magician and the wisecracking rabbit who is the secret brains behind his act.

Eight-year-old Oliver dreams of being a professional magician, even though he has terrible stage fright. And now, his friends Teenie and Bea have gotten him invited to a classmate's birthday party as the paid entertainment! Desperate for help, he visits The Great Zoocheeni's Magic Emporium, but comes away with nothing more than a moth-eaten top hat.

Oliver is in for a lucky surprise, though. Inside that top hat hides a wisecracking rabbit named Benny, who agrees to help Oliver with his act. But at the party, Oliver is accused of robbery! He'll need to solve the mystery of the missing robo-cat to clear his name before he and Benny can amaze the crowd with their grand finale. - (Penguin Putnam)

Pseudonymous Bosch is the infamously anonymous author of the New York Times bestselling Secret Series and the Bad Books. Despite rumors to the contrary, his books are not actually written by his pet rabbit, Quiche. Nor is he the alter ego of Raphael Simon, a totally unrelated author who lives in Pasadena, CA, with his husband and twin daughters.

Shane Pangburn grew up in rural Illinois and now lives in Los Angeles, where he writes whenever he's not drawing, taking photos, watching TV, or otherwise working. He produces YALLWEST, the nation's largest Youth and Young Adult literary festival. His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The Daily Dot, numerous college textbooks, and how-to guides. He worked as a children's bookseller and textbook illustrator before switching to literary promotion, assisting other authors on their book campaigns. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

Bosch raises the curtain on a new series, which features a third-grader with a yen to be a magician, who uncovers a mystery alongside his first paid gig. Despite some quick instruction from Benny, a wisecracking rabbit living in a magic shop's old top hat, Oliver's inexpert debut before his classmates seems headed for disaster—until rich and thoroughly spoiled Maddox accuses Benny of stealing his birthday present, a robotic kitty. With just 13 minutes until Maddox's mom calls their parents, Oliver and his friends split up to interview suspects and gather clues. Ultimately, a simple card trick provides both the insight that allows Oliver to put the bits together and the pretext for a dramatic denouement that he delivers from the stage to enthusiastic applause. The author pulls out a late twist, slips in line drawings (some partly in color) on almost every page, and, for a final flourish, closes with a description of the trick and suggestions for patter. No abracadabra needed to make this disappear from the shelves. Grades 2-4. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

The author most recently of the Bad series (Bad Magic, 2014, etc.) returns with a new series opener for somewhat younger children. It's clear he loses none of his comedic touch with this shift in audience. The narrator invites readers to the story of 8-year-old generous-spirited Oliver, a Jewish boy and a beginning magician. He hasn't yet developed the confidence to pull off the card trick he's rehearsing in front of twin friends Beatriz, or Bea, who loves games involving math and science, and Martina, or Teenie, who loves running and acrobatics. As encouraging as they are truthful about Oliver's skills, the twins do Oliver a favor and get him invited to 9-year-old classmate Maddox's birthday party, who invited everyone in third grade but Oliver. Oliver's debut flops…and becomes a diversion for someone stealing the robot cat Bea and Teenie give to the tantrum-throwing birthday boy, who accuses Bea, Teenie, and Oliver of stealing said gift. The robustly multicultural cas t—Bea and Teenie are Mexican-American and have two dads; Maddox's gal pal Memphis builds architectural models; and Jayden, who's drawn as black, is a tech whiz—is introduced naturally. With a talking rabbit on the lam, this amusing story of friendship, failure, and success (and an erupting candy volcano) neatly slips in vocabulary along the way. Readers shouldn't have so much ridiculous fun with a book as they do with this one. (Fiction. 8-10) Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Unabashedly clueless Oliver is ill suited for two roles that Bosch (the Secret Series) slyly gives him in this raucous series opener. The first is magician, which he botches from the get-go, attempting a card trick using an incomplete deck borrowed from his cousin, who assures him, "You don't need a full deck for most tricks. You'll see, magic is easy." (Or not.) After his friends, twins Bea and Teenie, discover that Oliver is the only third grader not invited to the birthday party of the richest kid at Nowonder Elementary, they manage to book him as entertainment. Flustered, he hies to a magic shop, where he picks up a mangy top hat that's home to a wisecracking rabbit, Benny. The bunny helps Oliver in his second mismatched role, that of investigator ("Hey, Benny? How do you investigate?" he asks) of the theft of the birthday boy's prized present. Portrayed in Pangburn's peppy cartoons, unremitting slapstick scenarios augment the comedy, as do puns, miscommunications, and Bosch's cheeky, meddling narration. Oliver finally redeems himself with a sleight of hand (masterminded by the rabbit underneath his hat and detailed at story's end for aspiring magicians) that wows the partygoers. Ages 7–9. (May)