Customer Reviews

Magpie Magic: A Tale of Colorful Mischief

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this book for my 3 year old daughter for Christmas. It was one of two books that we had borrowed from the local library over the course of the year that we wanted to keep. (My wife tends to borrow about a dozen or two books a week as the library is right next to the preschool.) It was wonderful to provide my daughter with the chance to tell the story herself. The drawings and story line drew her in. The editorial reviews do a good job of describing the book, so I won't. This is one of two books out of the hundreds that we have borrowed that we elected to purchase, so my high rating isn't just inflated. ("The Lion and the Little Red Bird," by Elisa Kleven was the other.)

Being a page at the local library, I come across a LOT of books. This is one of many that has followed me home. The story is completely wordless aside from color names inside the back cover and info inside the front cover, so it's nice for a wide range of ages and mostly lacks a language barrier. It's cleverly and well illustrated. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a book that will make them smile.

"Magpie Magic" by April Wilson, sub-titled, "A Tale Of Colorful Mischief", Dial Books, New York, 1999.

The words in this book stop with the copyright page. Then, the entire story is told in colorful illustrations by April Wilson. The magpie, a black and white bird, first is drawn, and, with a backward glance, flies off the paper. The illustrator's hands attempt to catch the wayward bird, who soon returns to eat the luscious, red cherries that also pop up off the paper. The orange balloon is soon popped, too, but then the magpie helps the hands to draw with the yellow pencil. The story continues through the colors of the rainbow, green and then blue, and finally, to a purple (violet) cage into which the magpie is lured with more bright red cherries. A brown lock is drawn to secure the cage and the brown key is erased.

But! The magpie has seen how the gum eraser works, and uses it to escape from the cage. The bird then creates mayhem until the illustrator erases most of magpie with the white gum eraser. The magpie struggles to re-constitute itself , and does so using every color of the rainbow. A most colorful story, indeed!

I originally bought this book to give to my then 3-year old granddaughter. Then went back the next day to buy one for myself. It has given me pleasure every time I open it.

The 36 full page drawings are beautifully done and there are so many stories to be told and embroidered about each of them.
With the book on your lap, all the drawings are approximately life size, so there is an immediacy to the stories you will "write" about the pictures. As you tell the story, it is almost as though you are also drawing the pictures yourself.

A gift of a magical box of colored pencils produces some surprising situations. Your child will tell his own story from the emotions that are implied by the beautiful illustrations. You will see at the end of the story how the magpie "reinvents himself" to suit himself!