While finding books about wishes, I realised that often the wish comes via some item...a pebble in Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and a diamond when Templeton Gets his Wish. Of course, many wishes come via a wand, a spell, a potion or a powder, but there are other more unusual givers of wishes and everyday items that provide the magic. A magic item is any object that has magical powers inherent in it. These may act on their own or be the tools of the person or being whose hands they fall into. Magic items are commonly found in both folklore and modern fantasy.
There are pots,
quilts,
carpets,
cloaks,
There is a magic cloak in The Twelve Dancing Princesses , a fairytale, but they are also in the Japanese folktale, Momotaro, Harry Potter and King Arthur, so stories about invisibility cloaks have been around for hundreds or possibly thousands of years.
pencils,
crayons,
paintbrushes,
and mirrors,
but, the device could be almost anything ... a key, a ticket, beans (Jack and the Beanstalk) yarn (Extra Yarn), an ice block stick (Rosie's Magic Horse), a pen (Philomena Wonderpen), a biscuit tin (Elsie and the Magic Biscuit Tin), a ring (Strega Nonna's Magic Ring), a carpetbag (Mary Poppins) shoes (The Girl, the Bear and the Magic Shoes), shoelaces (Magic Shoelaces), a hat (The Magic Hat), a lamington (Possum Magic), or even a book (Polly Diamond and the Magic Book). There are sure to be others tooth I have missed.
Young readers need to read stories with magical items that do good while they are young, because as they get older and read longer texts the magical items may not be only for good and they do need some precursors before reading the King Arthur legends, the Greek Myths and fantasies such as Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
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