Mary Graham Bonner (born September 5, 1890; died February 12, 1974) was a Canadiannote author most known for her childrens’ stories, although she did also produce some nonfiction books later in her career. While semi-famous back in the day for The Magic Map and the Thematic Series it spawned, she has been mostly forgotten nowadays.
Selected bibliography:
- Magic series (1927-1931)
- The Magic Map (1927)
- Magic Journeys (1928)
- The Magic Music Shop (1929)
- The Magic Universe (1930)
- The Magic Clock (1931)
- The Animal Map Of The World (1931)
- A Hundred Trips To Storyland (1930)
- The Big Baseball Book For Boys (1931)
- Danger On The Coast: A Story Of Nova Scotia (1941)
- Made In Canada (1943)
- Couriers In The Sky: The Story Of Pigeons (1944)
- Out To Win: A Baseball Story (1947)
- The Base Stealer (1951)
- Dugout Mystery (1953)
- Wonders Around The Sun (1957)
- Two-Way Pitcher (1958)
- Spray Hitter (1959)
- Wonders Of Invention (1961)
- Wonders Of Musical Instruments (1963)
Tropes present in her works include:
- Animate Inanimate Object: A few of these show up in the Magic series:
- The Magic Music Shop has living musical instruments inhabiting the titular Shop, who are rather eager to educate Minna about the history of music when she stumbles in.
- Then in The Magic Clock there’s the titular Clock (yes, that’s its name), which has Time Travel powers.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Magic series is full of these, starting with geographical concepts like the Western Hemisphere and the Equator and eventually Geography itself in The Magic Map.
- Audience Surrogate: The various protagonists in the Magic books-all of whom start out their stories as children bored and slightly frustrated with their studies- are supposed to be this to the children of the 1920s.
- Author Appeal:
- Bonner was quite fond of her home country of Canada, and wrote a few books about its history.
- She also enjoyed baseball (having picked up the game when she still lived in Cooperstown), and wrote numerous baseball-themed stories.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Magic Journeys is the only book in the Magic series to be a direct sequel to The Magic Map, instead of being only thematically related to it.
- Edutainment Show: Every book in the Magic series (except for The Magic Clock) teaches something- The Magic Map and Magic Journeys educate about geography (of the Western and Eastern hemisphere, respectively); The Magic Music Shop teaches music history and a bit of music theory, The Magic Universe explains astronomy, and The Animal Map Of The World explores the animals of the world.
- Later-Installment Weirdness:
- The last two books in the Magic series both suffer from this. The Magic Clock is the only book in the series to not be even remotely educational, while The Animal Map Of The World is the only book in the series to not have the word “Magic” in the title.
- Moustache de Plume:
“Out of consideration for masculine sensitivities”, she would have her baseball-themed stories listed as being by “M.G. Bonner”. - Nations as People: A few of these round out the cast of personified geographical elements in The Magic Map, and quite
◊ a◊ few◊ more◊ show up◊ in Magic Journeys. - Thematic Series: The Magic series, which is themed around ordinary kids stumbling in to marvelous adventures that end with the kid being better educated about some aspect of the world, although The Magic Clock breaks this theming by being a straight-up adventure story with no educational element.
- Time Travel Episode: The Magic Clock is one for the Magic series, with the titular clock taking children across time for various adventures.
