Will Do Magic for Small Change

Name: Will Do Magic for Small Change
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Andrea Hairston
ISBN: 9781705072578

Author: Andrea Hairston

Narrator: Andre Santana, Tamika Katon-Donegal

Unabridged: 17 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/11/2022

Categories: Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Urban

Synopsis

Andrea Hairston’s historical fantasy Will Do Magic for Small Change presents a tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other.

Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire, but she’s always been theatrically challenged. That won’t necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth.

Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer—a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Theirs is a story of magic and alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon’s past is unmistakable.

When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together.

About Andrea Hairston

Andrea Hairston is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre. She is the author of Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the 2011 Otherwise Award and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award, and Mindscape, shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick and Otherwise Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. In her spare time, she is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She has received the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for outstanding contributions to the criticism of the fantastic. She bikes at night year-round, meeting bears, and the occasional shooting star.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Allison on November 03, 2022

This is billed as a genre bender but it's stay fantasy-- perhaps the genre bending is really intense grim dark and... Middle grade? This goes from graphic rape and dismemberment to a Disney after school special and back too much. Time of death 55% Content warnings as of 50%: (view spoiler)[ rape, loss of a loved one (hide spoiler)]......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on July 03, 2017

Will Do Magic for Small Change feels like Octavia Butler crossed with Charles de Lint. It mixes genres, with aliens and magic, and explores themes such as race, gender, sexuality, and family history. It’s one of the most original SFF novels I’ve read in years. Will Do Magic for Small Change opens wit......more

Goodreads review by Geonn on October 24, 2022

I was on the fence about this because the reviews seemed to be love-hate, and the title made me feel like it might be a run of the mill borderline YA urban fantasy. Having read it (and I HATE saying this because it's so condescending and smug but) it makes me wonder if the people who gave it bad rev......more

Goodreads review by Alan on November 26, 2022

Rec. by: Title, MCL (Holgate branch) Rec. for: James' gang "Perhaps the stories I write are the convenient lies I tell on myself until they seem true." —The Wanderer, p.51 Andrea Hairston's 2016 novel Will Do Magic for Small Change starts with a funeral, and a book. Which makes sense—after all, as our p......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on August 03, 2016

I picked up this book randomly at the library, and had no expectations. After a couple of chapters, I was blown away, and stayed that way for the rest of the book. Cinnamon reminds me a lot of my granddaughter, a big girl both old and young for her age. The writing is too complex, I think, for most......more