Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher

The Magic Shop series features an array of stand-alone children’s fantasy novels and short stories that Bruce Coville wrote and published between 1989 and 2003. The series as a whole is unified by the common motif of a mysterious magic shop, Elives’s Magic Supplies, which magically appears to those who need something from it. Each story focuses on a different child who is preoccupied with a specific problem and stumbles upon the shop. Each one is given a magical item or creature by the old shopkeeper, Mr. S. H. Elives. The first book is The Monster’s Ring (1989), alternately titled Russell Troy, Monster Boy, which centers on a frequently bullied boy named Russell who receives a magic ring that allows him to turn into a monster. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher is the second novel in the series and focuses on Jeremy Thatcher, the son of a veterinarian, who is given a dragon egg to hatch and raise. In the third book, Jennifer Murdley’s Toad (1993), a girl named Jennifer, who would do anything to be beautiful, receives a talking, magical toad named Bufo. The Skull of Truth (1999), or Charlie Eggleston’s Talking Skull, is the fourth book and centers on a boy, Charlie, known for being a liar. He steals a strange skull from Mr. Elives’s shop, and it curses him so that he is only able to tell the truth. In the fifth and final book of the series, Juliet Dove, Queen of Love, the Greek goddess Eris breaks into the shop and gives an amulet to a girl named Juliet. The amulet causes boys to fall in love with her, and she cannot take it off. In addition to the five novels, Coville has also written several short stories about the magic shop, including The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones (1997) and The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado (2008).

While the protagonist and setting of each book is different, a few recurring characters reappear throughout the series, such as Mr. Elives himself; Ms. Hyacinth Priest, the librarian introduced in Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher; and the talking rats Roxanne and Jerome, who are introduced in Jennifer Murdley’s Toad and act as Mr. Elives’s messengers. Additionally, occasional references are made to items from other books, as when Jennifer Murdley notices Tiamat’s dragon egg in the shop. This detail implies that the books are not written in chronological order.