Chapter Book #5 The Magic Box

Author: Barbara Brenner

Title: The Magic Box

Illustrator: Manuel Boix

Readability: 2.9

Genre: Chapter Book

Subgenre: Realistic

Theme: Do not forget about your daily life because you find something new.

Character: Towns People, Marvin, Mayor

Award(s) date of publication: 1998

Publisher: A Bryon Preiss Book

ISBN: 0-8368-1764-8

Summary:

There was a small tourist town in a valley that was very busy and had travelers and peddlers passed through all the time. One day there was a rock slick and rocks rolled onto the roads and train tracks. Since the rocks cover the trained tracks the people of the town could not come and go and they knew nothing what was going on outside of their town. As the years passed grass grew over the roads and train tracks and they did not see travelers and peddlers anymore. Sadly they did not know about jet planes, television, computers or the new kind of toothpaste. They were still happy, they read books, made quilts, and still tended to their beans. They smiled and did not mind people did not visit anymore. One day a cargo plane was lost in a snow storm drop of its cargo, in the middle of town, to save gas.

Once the town’s people saw the box, everyone gathered around it in town square. They whispered trying to figure out what was in the box, thinking what was inside could hear their whispers. A young boy named Marvin was the one that finally said open it. The mayor was the one who finally opened the box and the crowd was quiet. They guessed what it was, the thing that looked like a mirror, a table, and even said it was another box or a safe. Once Marvin found the electric plug they plugged it in the mayor’s office and began to watch the box, known as a television. When they turned the knobs and the T.V. came on they thought it was magic, a magical gift.

Slowly the town’s people began to change; they would watch the T.V every morning. They watch cartoons, game shows, singing, crying, eating, and chewing, they did not know what it was but they watched all the time. The only person that did not watch the box was Marvin. They watched so much they had picnics, slept on cots, and made the room home. Since everyone stayed and never left and did not think to clean up the floor became nastier and sticker. Sadly the normal life of the town’s people was not normal anymore. They forgot about the crops, playing ball, and even reading. One day the Mayor was sick of what she saw in her town and told the people she wishes the box never came. Marvin tells people that the box is just a machine. He tells the Mayor the box is not really magic just a little magic. He then turns the television off and the town began to turn back to normal. When the town people decided they wanted to come inside they would turn on the magic box.

Use in the classroom:

 This book would be great to introduce children to the realization that there was not always television. They could write about what they did if they could not watch television. I would even challenged them to not use it for a full a week and write what they would do instead.