The German writer Paul Maar (b. 1937), winner of the German Children's Literature Prize, the Austrian State Prize, the German National Literature Prize and many others, is a real wizard and sorcerer of words, well known to the Russian reader as the author of wonderful books about Subastic. The hero of his new book, Max, is a cute German boy who lives with his pharmacist father and dreams of having a dog. One day, a father and son receive as a gift from a strange old woman a bottle with an unusual liquid, the properties of which at first are not suspected. Magical adventures, wonderful transformations and wishes fulfilled in the most bizarre way... and all this today, in an ordinary quiet German town.