The Green Book and In The Night Garden

"The Green Book", by Amal El-Mohtar, is a story fraught with an air of mystery. It is somewhat suspenseful, has a touch of horror, and leaves the reader in question. The story does not have many apparent morals or themes to it. However, something the reader may gather from the story as a whole is the power a book and writing can have on an individual. It is difficult to say wether or not the Green Book itself really was magically filled with the woman Cynthia or not. If it was, then the reader's imagination is opened up to possible symbols that the book and Cynthia may be. The book may be a symbol for the identifiability of literature. It has the power to captivate many different readers and draw them in. If perhaps Cynthia is simply a figment of Leuwin's imagination then she represents the predicament that comes from too much identification with literature and the unnatural world.
These representations and issues can be related to the use of magic in "In the Night Garden". As "The Green Book" has many different users of the book, in "In the Night Garden" there are many different performers of magic. And as the characters in "In the Night Garden" use magic in different ways, the readers and writers in "The Green Book" use the book differently. Some characters, such as Omir, use magic for corrupt things. Corresponding to this would be "the sisters" use of the book to cast Cynthia into it. However, some good does come out of these corruptions. In "The Green Book", Leuwin and Cynthia are able to fall in love through the casting of Cynthia into the book. In "In the Night Garden", Knife is able to rescue the princess who stays a strong and intelligent woman despite of the tortures Omir cast upon her. As there are evil ways magic and the book are used, there are also good found in both. "The Green Book" is mostly full of not-well-intentioned writing. However, I find that Cynthia has not had bad intentions and has simply been a kind woman. Magic in "In the Night Garden" is used for good often, specifically by Knife and her grandmother in order to save people
A conclusory thought to these things would be that perhaps books and magic can be seen as almost the same thing. They both have effects on people, both good and bad. In relation to "The Green Book" and "In the Night Garden", one can find that regardless of the intention and outcome, both magic and the book are powerful both on the surface and symbolically.