A magical place for solitude, mystery: NYC

Magic can be found in so many different places — but it seems as if it must be extra concentrated in a few special locations. If two books for young readers are any indication, New York City is definitely an epicenter for magic of all sorts.

“Mona Lisa in New York” by Yevgenia Nayberg. ( Ages 4 to 8. Prestel Junior. $14.95.) What’s a famous face to do when she’s just plain over it? Mona Lisa, from her perch in Paris, laments, “I know everything and everyone knows me.” But when she visits New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mona Lisa magically sneaks away from her gilded frame for a walk around the city ... and is shocked to be ignored by blase city-dwellers. Befriended by Tag (a mustachioed graffiti art figure who, like Mona Lisa, has sprung to life), the lady tours the city and feels the magic of a Brooklyn slice, jazz, and a dance on the High Line.

The grand lady eventually returns to her frame and her life in Paris ... but the witty art (packed with images borrowed from famous artists) makes it clear she’s left behind her heart, and a bit of

her magic, too.

“Kingston and the Magician’s Lost and Found” by Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi. (Ages 10 and up. G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers. $17.99.) When Kingston was 8, he was sitting in the audience at his father’s spectacular magic show, surrounded by an eager crowd, with “Brooklyn glitz and style and swagger, all enchanted like.” Then the magic in King’s life vanished, as his father stepped through a mirror — and disappeared. Four years later, King returns to Echo City, Brooklyn, and finds himself embroiled in the mystery of his father’s life and disappearance, and the stagecraft and real magic behind it.

King’s Echo City is a fascinating mix of big-city detail and magical-world building, packed with the history of magic (including pioneering Black magicians) and an alternate-universe conundrum for King to solve. Through it all, authors Theo Gangi and Rucker Moses (a pen name for writing duo Craig S. Phillips and Harold Hayes Jr.) keep at the center their satisfying themes of friendship and family loyalty. Through a tricky ending in which magical dimensions are stacked together like cards in a deck, the authors leave an opening for the story, and the magic, to continue.