This is the second long-lost book I picked up cheap (one cent!) off Amazon. First encountered in sixth grade study hall, my memories of this book really, really confused me when Harry Potter came out and everyone was talking about a book about a school of wizards. Hadn't that been around for years?School of Wizardry shares a basic premise with Harry Potter--it's the story of a boy at a school for wizards. That's about all that the two books have in common, though. Debra Doyle's earlier book is much more serious in tone and is set in a quasi-medieval world. She & James MacDonald paint a fairly vivid portrait of this world, particularly of the school (the Schola Sorceriae) itself. They have a fantastic attention to detail that I found extremely appealing both at 11 and now; the training of apprentice wizards is nicely planned and explained. Unfortunately, the book is extremely brief and while the universe building is strong, the characters suffer for this brevity. Doyle and MacDonald pack an enormous amount of information and a tremendous number of plot points into 140 pages. I often sensed that I was reading a much longer book, condensed. Every character, including our young hero Randal are oversimplified, wooden. I think that, given more space to develop, this would have been easily avoided. I don't know if this brevity was the result of the genre and the times; I know that prior to Rowling, publishers were loathe to publish longer books for children, and I sense that this is the real reason for the plain and slightly stereotyped characters. After all, Doyle and MacDonald are clearly capable writers otherwise. ( )