The Serpent's Spell - Bridgman, Rae St. Clair

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Résumé :
Unbeknownst to ten-year-old Wil Wychwood, he comes from a long line of mages. But with the death of his grandmother and his world upended, Wil moves to live with the Aunts and finds himself in MiddleGate - where buses drive through brick walls and leaning houses dot streets named Wog's Hollow and Half Moon Lane. The four-hundred-and-ninety-four-year-old school, Gruffud's Academy, is out of this world too. With classes in numeristics, botanicals, cartology and verbology, and textbooks like Magykal Spelling, Grammar and Palaver, this is no ordinary school. Yet something dark brews beneath the veneer of this idyllic hidden city. When Wil and his cousin Sophie rescue the sacred snakes of Narcisse, they find themselves swept up in a dangerous plot. The secret society known as the Serpent's Chain is on the loose, and Wil is carrying the very thing they've been searching for. Beware the Serpent's Chain, they were told, but what does that mean? What dangers await Wil and Sophie as they unravel this wicked mystery?

Biographie:
Rae St. Clair Bridgman is an award-winning author and illustrator of children's books. A university professor, anthropologist, urban planner, co-director of an architectural design firm, mother of six, and grandmother of nine, she has a knack for finding the magical and extraordinary in the ordinary, in between the cracks of reality. The Kingdom of Trolls, the fourth book in her acclaimed MiddleGate series, was inspired by three field trips to Iceland as a visiting artist and her desire to bring the real sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Iceland to life for readers in Canada and elsewhere. The first book in the MiddleGate series, The Serpent's Spell, was a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award at the Manitoba Book Awards, while the second book, Amber Ambrosia, won the Moonbeam Children's Book Award (Pre-Teen Fiction) gold medal. Book III, Fish & Sphinx, won an honourable mention from the Speculative Literature Foundation and was nominated for a Cybils Award for Fantasy and Science Fiction. The Kingdom of Trolls has won the Moonbeam Children's Book Award (Pre-Teen Fantasy) bronze medal, and like The Serpent's Spell, was shortlisted for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People's Award. In her spare time, Rae enjoys watching ants, chasing crayfish, reading the dictionary, playing tuba, watching clouds, and inventing toys. Some of her favourite sayings are: Often, secrets do not remain secrets for long. Things that disappear by themselves can come back by themselves. Problems can multiply like flies. The story certainly changes depending on the storyteller. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her family.