Thirteen-year-old Nita Callahan finally finds a way to get back at the notorious school bullies, Joanne and her gang, when she discovers a library book on the art of wizardry. She hardly dares to believe the book's claim that she too can become a wizard if she's willing to take the Wizard's Oath and undergo the danger of a wizard's initiation, the Ordeal. But to her astonishment and delight, her new Wizard's Manual is telling her the truth. While practicing her first spells, Nita meets Kit Rodriguez, another young wizard, and starts working with him to find a solution to her bullying problem.

Cover for mass-market paperback edition of So You Want To Be a Wizard

What they get, though, doesn't look much like a solution. Kit and Nita suddenly find themselves dealing with a "white hole" named Fred, who's arrived on Earth with an urgent message regarding the mystical Book of Night with Moon. The Book is missing…and has to be found quickly if dire things aren't going to start happening to the Earth.

It's not long before the search for the bright Book leads Nita and Kit to a deadly alternate Manhattan, where they encounter man-eating helicopters, vicious packs of killer cabs, and the terrible wolflike perytons, which attack them at every turn. Despite the danger, Kit and Nita are determined to rescue the Book of Night with Moon from the lair of the dragon who presently possesses it. But can they keep it out of the clutches of the Lone Power, the ancient darkness cast out long ago from the heart of the worlds?…