Focus Pocus

by Beatrice Gormley

When Aunt Bets gets lost on the way to the optician's it's the start of another adventure for Andrea. Although Andrea's black-framed glasses seem ordinary enough, Ms Weirse promises she will be able to focus on things in a new way. Humiliated in front of Julie Dodd, Andrea decides Aunt Bets needs improving, and suddenly discovers the glasses give her an extraordinary power.

126 pages, Paperback

Published June 18, 1987

About the author

Born in Glendale, California, Beatrice grew up in Southern California. After graduating from Pomona College, she worked in publishing near San Francisco. There she met and married Robert Gormley, and they moved to Massachusetts. They have two daughters.
Since age 9 Beatrice had wanted to become a writer. But it wasn't until after her children were born that she really focused on her writing. In 1981 her first book, Mail Order Wings,was published. Since then she's written many popular novels and biographies for young people. Her most recent books are Second Lives, a novel of humans and other animals, and the biography Joe Biden: Our 46th President.

Reviews

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this reread from my childhood as much as the excellent Mail Order Wings (by the same author, about the same characters), mainly because Andrea is hardly proactive at all in this one. In Mail Order Wings she makes all the decisions, and the story builds up into quite a creepy dark story. In this, the magic glasses are more or less forced on her and she basically has no control over what happens, even at the end. It's more comedic (so there is some fun to be had) but a bit on the silly side for my liking, though allowances can be made for its target age group in that respect.