Boy goes to wizard school. Didn't appeal to me. Too cutesy. I recommend So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane, A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper and even The Winter Of Magic's Return by Pamela Service. Read it again in 2012, it seems to have improved a bit. Now I'm reading book two! Interesting that Nicholas Flamel is in there!