n apparently ordinary neighborhood in Los Angeles, Baldwin Hills becomes the center of a mystical war when a teenage boy finds an abandoned newborn in the vacant lot near his home. The instant he lays eyes on the baby, Ceese Tucker feels a powerful sense of responsibility for its well-being. He and a nurse from the neighborhood rush it to the hospital only to discover that the baby has enemies. In fact, a mysterious woman on a motorcycle tries to force Ceese to throw the child down a flight of stairs to its death.
Instead, Ceese ends up raising the foundling in an odd partnership with the nurse, Miz Smitcher. Mack Street, as they name him, grows into an eccentric but good-natured boy, befriended by all the children on the block and welcome in every home. The only stain on Mack's otherwise idyllic childhood is his disturbing ability to visit the dreams of his neighbors. Through these so-called "cold dreams," Mack not only learns the most heartfelt desires of the people of Baldwin Hills but is dismayed to see them coming true in invariably horrific ways.
Mack doesn't tell Ceese or Miz Smitcher about the cold dreams: He is afraid they will think he is crazy or, worse, responsible for the bizarre misfortunes that befall the people around them. Quietly he works to redirect the dreams before harm can come to his neighbors. But even his good intentions and considerable force of will cannot protect Baldwin Hills forever ... especially when a certain femme fatale moves into a house up the road and begins annoying the neighbors with the noise of her late-night motorcycle rides.
Shakespeare's fairies live on
Orson Scott Card has a wonderful touch with offbeat coming-of-age stories, and Magic Street is no exception. Mack Street's unusual childhood and his step-by-step growth into the champion of Baldwin Hills make an engaging story. His feather-light hold on the real world is anchored by his relationships with the no-nonsense Miz Smitcher and always-devoted Ceese, ties that are portrayed in a winsome—but never overly sentimental—fashion. Mack's struggle to do the right thing when faced with the horror of the cold dreams also makes for suspenseful reading.
As Magic Street opens, Baldwin Hills is full of mysteries. Mack's true nature is unknown, and both the "Bag Man" who originally abandoned him in the neighborhood and the homicidal female biker are intriguing puzzles. In time, the reader learns that the Bag Man is, in fact, the infamous fairy Puck from William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. More revelations follow, and with each one this book loses a little of what makes it seem, at its outset, so original and powerful. The tale makes an untidy metamorphosis into a straightforward action-adventure piece, complete with a monstrous villain, a combat-hardened girl sidekick and a flashy battle at the finish.
This is not to say that Card's ending does not satisfy, or even that the big showdown at the end of Magic Street is much of a letdown. Rather, this is a book that, like many of its characters, isn't quite what it at first seems to be. Some readers will enjoy its turn into familiar terrain thoroughly; others, however, may wish that it and Mack had continued down the wild, strange path on which they initially set out.
