The Big Shrink: 01/07/20

The Big Shrink by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins is the sixth in the Upside-Down Magic series. This one is primarily from Marigold Ramos's point of view. She is the deaf student who has a problem accidentally shrinking people and things.

Before settling into Marigold's point of view, the first chapter is from Nory's. She was the protagonist / narrator for the first four books. She's at home for Thanksgiving and is introduced to the hot new toy, Dreggs. They are mini-dragons that hatch out of eggs and are active during the day. The more one plays with them, the more tricks they will learn. Nori goes back to her aunt's and to her school with a stash of these Dreggs to give to her friends.

The Dreggs quickly become the hot thing at Dunwiddle Magic School after Nori gives one to each of her classmates. Kids in other classes decide to get them too and there's finally something the regular kids and the students of Ms. Starr's class can bond over.

Enter Marigold. She has extra tutoring for her shrinking magic problem from a grad student. While the tutor is a bit of a ditz, her lessons do genuinely seem to be helping. While she's getting her powers under control, the Dreggs are becoming a nuisance from the administration's POV and are subsequently banned.

Here though is where the book took a tangent from where I thought it should go. The toy dragons are so life like I expected them to be shrunken dragons. I thought maybe Nory and Marigold could have worked together to figure this out and solve the mystery. Instead, they work together to mount a school wide protest. A seventh book has been announced: Hide and Seek but I don't know the release date.

Four stars

Comments (0)