Customer Reviews

Wizard at Work

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

 

 

This book is about a wizard who is a teacher to young wizards. He is looking forward to his summer vacation. He is dreaming of doing things like working in his garden, fish and take LOTS of naps. While on vacation he has many interruptions. First he has to resuce a princess, then lift a curse. Evey time he tries to relax someone needs his help! Will the wizard ever get any rest before school starts back? Read this fun book to find out!


The book moved at a fast pace. It will hold the attention of young readers well.


We recommed this to children who enjoy fantasty books. This is a good one to start with because it's only 134 and can be read fairly quickly.

Oh...now I so enjoyed this one!! A light, humorous and well written book of related (by the main character) short stories. The main character, a young wizard instructor on his summer vacation (who incidentally disguises himself during the school year and occasionally at other times as an aged wizard, because as he says, no one believes that a young man can be a wizard). Throughout the story, we find this wizard just trying to get some gardening done and enjoy his vacation...but he is dragged away from home over and over again in what amounts to some very slyly told adventures!

I think this author is one we will definitely be reading again! Both my kids enjoyed it and it was a nice twist on some of the better known fairy tales and even a little bit about the origins of the Lock Ness Monster...very cute! I laughed out loud in a couple of places...but mostly it was sly in way that kids can relate to if they've already heard all the standard tales.

A few illustrations would have been nice, but the cover provides enough of a beginning visual and while this intended audience is kids and teens from about 8-14, the language is vivid and expressive enough to pull off a good telling even to younger kids, if you do the voices and tell it in an expressive way. Heck, as an adult I certainly enjoyed it...maybe more than I should have. I give this one an A+ and both the kids gave it two thumbs up! This is a keeper!

This is a short, sweet, sensational book that should appeal not only to fans of Harry Potter but also lovers of classical fairytales. Wonderfully written and fast paced, it is both witty and wickedly funny. Almost more like a series of short stories than a novel, each chapter sees the hero of the story, a young wizard, embarking on a new adventure--or misadventure.

This is an easy read for the 8 to 12 year old market, and should tempt even the most reluctant of young readers, but in my view it will also definitely appeal to any older teens and adults looking for a good read as well.

This would be a fabulous choice for younger kids who are just about to make that leap from early chapter books into "bigger kid" independent readers such as Percy Jackson or other such books on that reading level. Parents with reluctant readers who enjoy a fantasy setting should consider this book as a good choice for it's easy vocabulary and the over all structure of the book which promotes more than one reading. That is, the book is broken into chapters, each one a different tale, but still centralized around the same main character. It would be very easy to read a chapter a day to strengthen reading skills on this one. The book would do equally good for both boys and girls

A school teacher magician is finally home on summer break. He wants nothing more than to take a nap, read some books and work in his garden. But every time he settles down to do just that someone interrupts him! A princess who needs help with a difficult sister, a dragon who needs rescuing from a princess, a gang of bbq eating unicorns, and a king who thinks his castle is haunted by a ghost all need help from our lovably, grouchy wizard. But the wizard has a big lesson to learn from all these encounters - things are not always what they seem and people can never be gauged by appearances, even at the best of times, but trough magic into the mix and you're in for trouble for sure! The story finally wraps up on a final story where the wizard agrees to help the king and queen find a husband for their tom boy daughter that appropriately wraps up the story on a happy note without being overly saccharine.

Over all this wasn't the best Velde's ever done, but as usual her prose is clean and simple and she displays her usual talent for presenting a world that is fully populated and incredibly believable as a home for her characters. And while I personally didn't get a lot out of it, I am by no means the target demographic after all, I think that for it's intended audience this will do no great disservices. Recommended.

This is a cute book with lots of elements that kids and adults will enjoy. We follow a wizard through hilarious adventures as he tries to help others (no good deed goes unpunished!) who are supposedly in need. Not all is at it appears - predictable but delightful. For example we meet a kindly stepsister and a princess who regrets leaving her dragon. The book winds up with a satisfying ending, the wizard's good deeds finally being rewarded, and a tough, funny princess.

This is really like a series of short stories about one summer in the life of the main character. I loved everything about it.

Wizard at Work is a light-hearted and sensibly fun middle grade novel from Vivian Vande Velde, who has established a reputation for solid fantasy and horror for Young Adult readers. I say novel, and that is how the book is packaged, but it is really a collection of some five fairly independent shorter pieces, with an introductory episode and a hint of a unifying narrative.

The never-named title character is an instructor at a school for wizards. He is fairly young, though he tends to disguise himself magically as an older man -- people just don't believe someone as young as he really is can be a respectable wizard. As the story opens, he is settling into his summer vacation, hoping to spend his time as usual -- puttering around his garden, mainly. An encounter with a rather snappish witch reminds him that he might not be ecstatically happy, but that "true happiness is overrated."

The rest of the novel, then, recounts five episodes, following a fairly consistent pattern. As he attempts to find peace and putter around his garden some more, he is interrupted by someone importuning him for help with a magical problem. The problems echo familiar stories -- a Cinderella variant, a ghost haunting a castle, a princess needing rescue from a dragon, troublesome unicorns, and a royal family trying to marry off an obstreperous daughter. Vande Velde rings some pleasant and clever changes on these familiar tropes. It's lots of breezy fun, with common sense ruling the day. And, as one might expect, the wizard himself has some growing to do.

This is a very enjoyable book. It doesn't plow any new ground, mind you, nor is it riotously funny. But it is pleasant throughout, sensible, humanistic, sweet -- in a word, nice.

A collection of stories about a young man who runs a school for young wizards throughout the school year and who loves to garden, fish and nap in the summer. This summer, however, is especially busy and he is called upon to help by those requiring the skills of a wizard, and during those times he disguises himself as an old man "as people expected a wizard to look".
This book includes 5 stories about the wizard's work, and what makes them so unique is that they draw upon familiar fairy tales and legends describing parts of those stories we've never heard. For example, one story entitled "Beasts on the Rampage" explains how Jack really got those magic beans, and it is not at all how one might expect. It seems that Jack is quite irresponsible and has a bit of a gambling problem. He is trying to concoct some story to tell his mother about where the money has gone that he received after selling their cow Bessie. Meanwhile a pack of adolescent unicorns is terrorizing the village and the wizard is called upon to address the situation. The unicorn's behavior has gotten so bad that we find out they are making a barbeque of Bessie. During a magic spell to make the unicorns grow older by one year and thus be past this stage of behavior, some residual magic is left on some beans that Jack then steals from the wizard. The reader is left listening to Jack's tale of how he exchanged Bessie for some magic beans. "Wizard and Ghost" explains just how Loch Ness ends up with a monster, and "The Princess and the Quest for the Golden Cucumbers" tells the story of how the wizard himself fulfills the quest to win the heart of a princess without using any magic. This is a very entertaining book that younger kids are really going to enjoy.