So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane is the first book in her long-running Young Wizards series of novels which currently consists of eleven books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published the next year. In 2012 a revised "New Millennium Edition" was released as an eBook. Premise Nita Callahan, a thirteen-year-old girl living in New York City, discovers a book entitled So You Want to Be a Wizard. She discovers that she can do actual magic and meets Kit Rodriguez, another young Wizard. (The Young Wizards series consistently capitalizes the word Wizard.) She discovers a new hidden magical world. Plot Nita, taking refuge in the library from bullies, checks out a book found in the children's section with the provocative title So You Want To Be a Wizard. On the way home, the bullies corner her, beat her up, and take a space pen given to her by her uncle. Before she goes to sleep, she takes the Wizard's Oath. The next morning she looks at her manual and sees her name in its list of Wizards. While practicing a spell to retrieve the pen, she meets another Wizard Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, also a new wizard, also making a spell for fearlessness. They create a new spell, which presents a vision of a frightening alternative Manhattan: polluted, lightless, and frightening. A terrible cosmic force (later named as the Lone Power) tries to consume them. They summon a sentient white hole from space, who they call "Fred". Next day at school, Fred and Nita try to retrieve Nita's pen from her bullies. Fred miscalculates the gravity required to lift the pen from the bullies' possession and swallows it instead and now has a bad case of hiccups. They seek help from local Advisory Wizards. Fred's problem is fixed, but Nita's pen is still gone. They must link Fred to a "worldgate" in Grand Central Station and pull the pen out of him. Fred also has some alarming news: a crucial book, Naming of Lights (or The Book of Night with Moon) has gone missing. It describes the true nature of the universe. Its shadow book contains descriptions twisted out of their true patterns. If the Lone Power should acquire the first book, the cosmos would be irreparably skewed. The three Wizards go to the dark alternative New York City via the world gate, in