Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Chancery, a hulking fellow known as "the Ugly" for his freckled blue skin and jagged underbite, covets his wizard boss's Red Book of Spells. The benevolent magician doesn't allow Chancery to play with magic, though: " `Wizardry concerns wizards,' he would say, `and that's only me.' " When the wizard makes a house call, Chancery sneaks a forbidden peek at the Red Book. "I want to be handsome," he tells it, whereupon its contents shower out in a glittery explosion. The blue fellow, whose features don't change, glues the pieces willy-nilly back into the book before the wizard returns. The wizard's spells soon fail with alarming (if amusing) results, displeasing a fire-breathing dragon and angering a king. Chancery finally confesses, and "must attain his innermost wish-without using any magic." Bernasconi (Captain Arsenio) indicates that "the mirror" is to blame for the hero's self-consciousness; "the Ugly" solves his problem by putting on an earnest smile. Lively patchwork collages show magical and not-so-magical transformations, and Bernasconi establishes appealing characters and prickly tension. Readers will sympathize with Chancery's predicament, even though the stolid conclusion shows the fellow accepting his lowly place (with a grin) and the wizard conserving his special authority ("if an ordinary person asks the book for anything, it protects itself," he tut-tuts). Bernasconi suggests that some embarrassing missteps can be remedied without a swish of the wand. Ages 5-up. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-Up "seventeen thousand, two hundred and nine" stairs lives Leitmeritz, a wizard who can grant people their innermost wishes by using the spells in his Red Book. He has often warned his assistant, a square-headed, blue fellow with mismatched eyes and a strange jaw, not to touch the book, for "Wizardry concerns wizards, and that's only me." But when Leitmeritz leaves the castle to help a unicorn in distress, Chancery opens the book and asks it to make him handsome. Letters and images fly out, and although he painstakingly replaces them before his master's return, disaster ensues. Suddenly, none of the spells work, and when a cure for sore feet causes a foot to sprout from the king's head, the wizard faces the ruler's wrath. Chancery finally confesses the truth, and Leitmeritz tells him that he can only set things right by making himself handsome without using magic. Bernasconi's collage illustrations are superimposed on letter cutouts and patterns, and the playful images that border the text invite close scrutiny. The sorcerer is a rotund, carrot-nosed individual with patched clothing, white curly whiskers right down to his fancy high-heeled shoes, and a pointy hat. Chancery's surprise resolution is a commentary on the true nature of beauty, and his behavior is reminiscent of that other bungling magician's assistant, Tomie dePaola's Big Anthony.-Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Chancery, a wizard's assistant, destroys the wizard's spell book by asking to be made handsome. After several spell mishaps, Chancery confesses his deed and repairs the book by finding handsomeness without spells--by smiling. The message is vague, the characters stock, and the tone self-conscious. Multi-textured collage-style illustrations sometimes muddle around but mostly exude visual appeal. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Bernasconi's idiosyncratic paint-and-collage illustrations turn his take on the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" into something strange and wild. Humiliated by his ugliness, Chancery opens his master's magic book in search of a fix--whereupon the spells all fly out. He stuffs them back in higgledy-piggledy. When his remarkably patient master discovers the hard way that they no longer work, he tells his assistant that the only way to restore them is to solve his own problem without magic, by "defeating the mirror." Against spattered or faintly patterned backgrounds, Bernasconi scatters clipped photos, cut-out words and assembled, almost abstract figures--of which Chancery, with his square head, mottled gray-blue skin, mismatched eyes and severe underbite, is the most misshapen. Ultimately, sporting a makeover and a set of hugely over-enlarged human teeth, he discovers that smiles dispel, or at least conceal, ugly features. A worthy theme, delivered with arty, overdone exuberance. Some may enjoy it. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
