All the Magic in the World. This item is unavailable.All the Magic in the World

An urban landscape becomes magical in an enchanting, colorful, and rhythmic parable as Joseph, the odd-job man, shows little Lena how ordinary objects can be made beautiful and how Lena herself can become a princess.

PreSchool-Grade 2-Every Friday evening, five children play together, and often they see Joseph, the "odd-job man," as he sits outside his nearby shop. They make fun of him for carrying around a tin filled with junk. One day Lena, the youngest child, approaches Joseph and watches, fascinated, as he pulls from his tin a string that he turns into "pictures"-a cup and saucer and a house. He gives her a shell so she can hear the sea and then fashions a "magic chain" out of old can tabs, which he gives to Lena. Wearing the necklace, the little girl dances gracefully, looking like a princess, and the other children, impressed, feel the power of the imagination. Nowhere in the text is the setting specified-the children's world is that of the yard, the street, the trees and fields, and the neighboring shop, but both author and illustrator live in South Africa. Text and illustrations complement one another well, and page breaks heighten the drama of the story and its resolution. This quiet, appealing book will remind readers of Niki Daly's Not So Fast, Songololo (McElderry, 1986), and of Karen Lynn Williams's Galimoto (Lothrop, 1990), which also celebrates the imaginative potential of everyday objects.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Siena College Library, Loudonville, NY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From South Africa, a gentle celebration of the power of the imagination. The neighborhood kids make fun of Joseph, the odd- job man, who collects ``junk'' in a special tin--and of clumsy little Lena, who ``always tripped over her own feet.'' But Joseph uses his treasures to comfort Lena: cleverly, he strings pop-tops into a necklace fit for a princess--as Lena, dancing, imagines herself to be. It's ``magic,'' but not from the tin--``You tell me where the magic is found,'' Joseph prompts, as the other children, intrigued by Lena's sudden grace, crowd around. In Daly's lively, beautifully composed illustrations, these exuberant black South Africans have little besides their sense of play and creativity; like Karen Williams's Gallimoto (1990), this simple story suggests that these are most important of all. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.