A Wizard in Love Review

PUB DATE: Feb 2009

AGE RANGE: 4 and up

Thanks to Tundra Books and Sylvia for sending this book to us.

This is a cute book that we both loved reading together. The story was really cute and the illustrations were well done.

The story is about Hector a retired wizard. He is living happily in a run down house at the end of the forest. He is a lazy wizard who naps and stays away from contact with people except his cat Poison. When they aren’t napping they are watching tv and eating cookies.

Then one morning everything comes to a halt when a noisy neighbor moves in next door. He pulls open the shutters and sees that the house across the street is all spruced up. He goes over and peeks into the window. He spots a beautiful woman singing as she plays the piano. This makes Hector angry.

Hector rushes back home to his attic for his magic spell book. Hector and Poison cook an “evil cake” to get rid of her. The cake looks really gross in the picture. Hector arranges the cake on a platter and he picks a handful of flesh eating flowers.

Hector heads across the street but Hector’s plan falls when the neighbor answers the door. Her name is Isobel and she has a beautiful voice. Her voice is described as “It was clear as water in a babbling brook and gay as a song of a bird.” Hector was no longer angry. He was in love.

It was great to see the change in the illustrations. At the beginning they were dark and Hector appeared dirty and grumpy and as the story went on the images got brighter and Hector appeared happy and clean looking.

If you would like to order the book you can go through here: http://www.tundrabooks.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780887769016