Author(s): Michael Gerber

Children Fiction

Like a chronic skin condition, the world's most irritating wizard is back! Barry Trotter, now 38 (going on 11), has returned to the Hogwash School for Wizardry and Witchcrap. He and his wife, Ermine Cringer, are there to deposit their Muddle-loving son Nigel, 11 (going on 38), and about as magical as a plastic fork.

Just as Barry and Ermine are set to leave, Headmister Dorco Malfeasance dies. Who cares - nobody much like Dorco anyway. Barry and Ermine are installed as interim heads of the School, and kick off a carnival of arrested development. But then, in the sort of plot twist that could only happen in a cheap novel designed to leech off a massive pop culture phenomenon, Barry develops youthenasia. He begins a steady march backwards in age and reliving the horrors of adolescence (including the Acne of Fire) may not be the end of it . . .