Books like Half Magic

"It seems a shame," said Jane, "that no one's going to know about our adventures. They would make such a good book. If only we could write them down!""But how would we do that?" asked Mark. "We're just kids. Oh. Wait. You don't mean...""I certainly do!" said Jane. "We just have to wish for it, and the Charm will take care of the rest. But we need to wish very carefully. Now, what kind of book do we want it to be?""I want it to be like one of E. Nesbit's books!" said Katherine. "Though... if the Charm makes the book like one of hers... you don't think it would be stealing, do you? That would be very wrong.""We could put in an Acknowledgement," said Mark. "Mr. Smith was telling me about that just the other day. We Acknowledge her Influence, and then it will be quite alright. Now, let's make the wish. And remember that we have to ask for twice as much of everything as we really want.""You don't think I'd forget that, do you?" asked Jane scornfully. "Charm... we wish that two authors could write two books about our adventures, and we wish that both the books will be just like E. Nesbit's books, and we wish that both books will have an Acknowledgement where the author says how much he thanks her for Influencing him, and we wish that it should be a very graceful and polite Acknowledgement."She was quite out of breath by the time she had finished. A moment later, there was the book, sitting on the table between them! It was called Half Magic, and the author was a Mr. Edward Eager. Mark picked it up and opened it."Oh look!" he said wonderingly. "Here's how we find the Charm! And here's where we meet Sir Launcelot! And here's the bit where we nearly cause a riot! But wait... it's not quite like E. Nesbit. To start off with, we're American!""You should have asked for it to be twice as much like E. Nesbit as E. Nesbit was!" said Katherine. "You didn't think carefully enough.""How can anything be twice as much like someone as they are themselves?" asked Jane, with the keen metaphysical intuition that comes so naturally to young children. "That doesn't make sense, so I couldn't have wished for it." And the others had to admit that she was right."Look for the Acknowledgement!" said Martha. Mark thumbed feverishly through the pages."I've found it!" he said triumphantly after a few minutes. "It's right here on page ten." And it was such a fine Acknowledgement that I must write it down here so that you can read it too.That summer, the children had found some books by a writer called E. Nesbit, surely the most wonderful books in all the world. They read every one that the library had, right away, except a book called The Enchanted Castle, which had been out.And now yesterday The Enchanted Castle had come in, and they took it out, and Jane, because she could read fastest and loudest, read it loud all the way home, and when they got home she went on reading, and when their mother came home they hardly said a word to her, and when dinner was served they didn't notice a thing they ate.If you ever have to write an Acknowledgement yourself, you may want to use the one the Charm had written as a model; and I can hardly imagine an author who would not be proud and happy to hear that some other author had so admired their work.