Marylee, I enjoyed reading your review. HALF MAGIC was the only Edgar Eager story I read and it definitely sounds like one of the better ones. Like many of your friends commenting on your review, I also read a large number of the traditional children's books, such as Ivanhoe, Horatio Hornblower (yawn), etc. My first S-F book was in grade school in 4th or 5th grade (circa 1970); I've wished for years that I could remember the title of it, because I remember it being pretty good. In Junior High I came across Sylvia Louise Engdahl's ENCHANTRESS FROM THE STARS, Isaac Asimov (both novels and short stories), and other "real" science fiction.