The Wizard

Martin, Bill

ISBN 10: 0152989269 ISBN 13: 9780152989262

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1994

Synopsis

A zany wizard and his assistants are busy mixing a potion and casting a spell, dancing around a bubbling cauldron until someone disappears, in a magical wordplay adventure, accompanied by exuberant full-color illustrations. By the author of Old Devil Wind.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 2?A lively wizard and his various assistants cast a spell, with much joy and playful mishaps along the way. The wizard briefly narrates: "I flip. I flop. I dee-dip. I dop." Schaefer's oil-paint illustrations match the musicality of Martin's brief, rhyming text. Each double-page spread is full of swirling motion and humorous activity. The wizard's assistants are an amusing bunch: a beetle, a rat, a toad, an owl, and a green gremlinlike creature. They engage in amusing antics as the spell progresses. The toad skis on bubbles (while the wizard slides and slips on soap skates); the beetle tightrope walks across the ping-pong net. As the spell nears completion, the scene gets even wilder, culminating in an appropriate final spread: "Poooooooof! I disappear!" At times the rhythm of the text can be lost as readers pause at each spread to peruse the details. It takes some time to take in all that's going on before getting to the second half of the rhyme on the next spread. Since most kids will want to read the book more than once, they'll enjoy spotting the details the second time around.?Steven Engelfried, West Lynn Library, OR
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The wizard is in his chamber, the cauldron is on the fire. Four assistants--a frog, a mouse, an insect, and a grimly appealing droog (a pea soup-colored assistant that looks like a cross between Marty Feldman and a chimpanzee)--engage the wizard in a series of games, accompanied by Martin's simple rhyming text (``I pong. I ping. I dong. I ding.''). The fun and games continue as the merrymakers swoop and dive and shuck and juke and slip and slide to a steady beat of words that feel like a spell being cast. A trace of menace enters the picture as an owl is trapped and hung above the black kettle. Then the wizard slips (he has been using soap cakes as skates), knocks open the door of the owl's cage (readers sigh with relief), and does a neat flip right into the hot pink bubbling potion. Fast as that, he's a goner. The illustrations, for all their gnarly, oil-on-linen texture, are nimble and riveting. Schaefer handles this potentially terrifying story with a light touch; suspense hangs in the air, but the characters are this side of scary. (Picture book. 3-8) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0152989269
• ISBN 13: 9780152989262
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Schaefer Alex