111 - Maxwell's Magic Mix-Up - children's book review

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Maxwell’s Magic Mix-Up was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. It was written by Linda Ashman and was illustrated by Regan Dunnick.

It’s Louise’s seventh birthday and the entertainer has called in sick. A magician is found but he really needs to hone his skills since he can’t control his wand and turns everyone into various things... the birthday girl is a rock, one boy is a pig, the father is a broom, etcetera. By the end, the magician’s nephew drops by to save the day.

The one thing that I liked a lot about this story was the rhythm that you can pace yourself with the text. The rhyming makes perfect sense.

Some of the words in this story might be way over the head of some kids. Words such as “incantation, diverted, sprawling, metamorphic” might confuse younger kids but it’s always good to challenge children and make them realize that there are lots of words out there.

One more point about the text is that some of the sentence do not use complete sentences. Articles are dropped (Entertainer calls in sick...) and so are words like “he” and “she”. I suppose this is done to help the rhythm of the sentences.

There’s a good balance with the size of the illustrations... some big, some small, some taking up two pages. The only problem with the illustrations is that I couldn’t get a sense of how many children were at the party until midpoint. The magician turns the rest of the children into a marching band but since I had no idea how many children had attended the party, I felt a bit confused. Maybe this was done on purpose but for me this happened a little too sudden.

While I’m not sure if there’s a message in this story, Maxwell’s Magic Mix-Up is a fun adventure in the house.

© Quigley Mark 2013