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Date: 12/6/2021
GRANBY – Nita Abbott considers herself a “Jack-of-all-trades.” Add children’s book author and magician to her list of talents and presto – out comes her recently published book series called “Max the Magician Now You See the Teacher, Now You Don’t,” published on Nov. 5.
The books are about a fourth-grade student named Max Hendo, “who thinks he is a serious magician, but his best friend Evan knows better. Whenever Max does a magic trick, it goes horribly wrong,” according to a synopsis of the book.
Abbott shared the reason why she wrote these books was “that I really believe in children’s literacy, and I also really love children’s books.” She said some of her favorite authors are Beverly Cleary of the “Ramona” series and Madeline L’engle of the “A Wrinkle in Time” series. She explained, “I’ve also always had an interest in magic and so putting in elements of magic and magicians in my books is natural to me.” She also noted that one of her mentors is Susie Klein, who writes the “Horrible Harry” series and added that Klein wrote a review for the series.
Growing up in Wilbraham, Abbott said that she has been writing since she was a teenager. She stated, “I was inspired by English teachers who always praised my creative writing, and as an adult, I had published authors praise my work, so it gave me the confidence to keep writing.”
She started writing the “Max the Magician” series five years ago, but put it on hold to focus on raising her three now teenage children.
While she completed and got the series published, she also worked part-time as a library consultant and attorney. She said she received her law degree from Syracuse University and eventually went on to earn her Master’s in Library Science from the same university.
She is also a member of the Granby Planning Board and a Granby Library Trustee. On top of this, she told Reminder Publishing that she also is a programming coordinator for local libraries.
To promote her book and the spirit of helping students embrace reading together with the element of fun, Abbott put together a program of author talks at schools and libraries called “Reading is Magic!” During the program, she talks about her book while performing magic tricks correlating to the passages, thus, “keeping kids engaged and entertained.” She may have more talks during February and April school vacations but has not finalized details yet.
Abbott lives in Granby with her family, and being a person of many hats, she shared that she is working on a new children’s non-fiction folklore book about the moon with “a local astronomy professor.” More information will be available once the book is finished, and there’s no date for that release yet.